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Lorna had driven from Kaleb's apartment down to Mutant Town, hoping to catch the golden Doctor to help get a look into what was causing Kaleb to bleed when he used his powers. She parked the car some distance away, getting out and locking it with a discreet wave of her hands that was hidden behind a key's useage. Yet as the two made their way down the street, there was a smell. An awful, sweet, and rotten smell.
Along the sidewalks were tiny splatters of gore. Blood and rotting flesh scattered everywhere. It had begun to rot and draw flies. There were few, if any, people braving the streets leading to Mutant Town on a good day. Today, it would seem, the sight had been enough to turn most people away.
Lorna froze, glancing toward Kaleb. "Uhm.." Her gaze swung over the meat puddles, looking down at the nearest one. Bit of brown fur could be seen, and tiny bones. All cast about in tiny bursts up and down the side walk.
Not far from Mutant Town, Kwabena Odame is taking a fare across town. The fare had insisted they not drive through 'that neighborhood of Abominations', which prompted him to do just that. The music is on, playing some kind of pop variety that the nun in the backseat simply scowls about, but she knows better than to speak poorly of the cab driver's choices. After all… she wouldn't want to be abandoned in such a terrible neighborhood!
Danielle doesn't dislike cars, but it's so much easier to just walk in this city. Especially in and near the so-called 'Mutant Town', and don't think she isn't contemplating a couple of pointed letters about that name. The young woman trudges along relatively clean pavement, a duffel bag slung comfortably over her right shoulder. It's the smell that hits her first, and dark eyes flash in alarm as she stops in her tracks. Cautiously, she crouches at the nearest meat puddle, nose wrinkled but gears whirling. "Uck."
Ninette looks overdressed for this terrible neighborhood, but here she is, getting out of a town car driven by an older man in a crisp suit. She had him pull over because there's Lorna and Kaleb. Once the driver is on his way, she waves to them. "Lorna, strange little man!" she calls out with her French accent. Then her gaze falls to the puddles of carnage, and she grimaces. "Oh, no."
Mutant Town is not among Illyana's usual haunts, but, frankly, her only usual haunts are Limbo and the X-Men's home. And Limbo is not the most hospitable place lately. She is there, at the moment, but only to scry on people she's trying to find — Lorna, in particular — and she wouldn't interrupt Lorna's date (yes, she would, this is Illyana), but she notices the chunks of meat and fur through her scrying pool and decides this might be a better way to spend her evening. She appears in a flash of light, peering over Dani's shoulder. "Uck times two," she agrees.
Animal decay and massive amounts of it. Just one more fun ailment to a city being torn apart by any number of directions at any time. The attacks uptown haven't been happening recently, the trail going cold and the tests Morbius has run are reaching a lack of conclusive information, so following the paths of dead animals and the smell of werewolves in the air is all he can go off of at the moment. They're all just looking for answers to something. Mutant Town. Finally a place where he doesn't have to worry so much about his appearance and masquerade as a homeless lurker. Morbius, still with his hood up and out in the day, no less, is crouched beside a pile of mutilated flesh, bone and fur down the street. Heaving a slow, heavy breath from his chest, the man presses up to his feet, looking down the gore-spattered sidewalk, features furrowed into a thoughtful, troubled expression. The sounds of disgust lost on him for the moment.
Mutant Town? Maximus doesn't go there, generally, unless he's trying to pick up mutant-minions at a bar for a strange journey to a deserted island. Its the perfect place to dress up. He…looks like a she. Snug, black dress with a split, heels, curled black hair, clean-shaven face, bright red lips, little purse clasped in his hands. He doesn't have fake breasts, so he'd look like a very flat woman, but…he passes well enough. "By /Kree/…what the fuck is /that/. Oh…is it on my heel? DAMN IT." She clicks over to a planter and takes off her heel and starts scraping off the goo.
Kaleb didn't dress down to come to Mutant Town. Kaleb Marshall Miller dressed down for no reason as a point of fact. He was either very confident or very careless. He walked with Lorna taking in the details of the part of the city greater he's never had purpose to be in. Polished Oxfords halted just before the meat puddle that was on the ground. His head turned and while it was gruesome he took comfort in his general lack of empathy towards most other living things and just eyed Lorna carefully. "Is there something you're not telling me because this is the the third time I've been greeted with a meat puzzle since I've met you." There was a double-take to Ninette who looked all manner of much better. she got a murmured "Bon jour" And glanced from her to Illyana who was approaching but then around because where there was smoke fire wasn't far. "Interesting welcome party. Is it always this…visceral?"
A rat skittered across the sidewalk, the sun might be heading toward the horizon but it wasn't dark out. Not yet. Not for a few more hours. Though the temperature of the hot summer day was beginning to drop with the sun in the sky. The creature was followed by another, and another.. until there were several half dozen rats skittering across the road and sidewalks, all seeming to flee something from down below. There's a nasty squeak from one of the rats, and it starts to nip at its companion.
Which lasts all of a second before the other rat turns around and makes a growling sound too low for any rat to make. It's fur ripples and there's a sickening sound. The bones in its jaw lengthen, looking canine vaguely, before it rapidly gains mass and… POP! The rat explodes into yet another meat puddle of blood and gore. Splattering the innards and muscle all over.
That it would seem, explained the meat puddles.
Lorna clapped her hands over her features, making a digusted sound at the back of her throat, even as her gaze swung back toward Ninette as the other girl called to her. "Ninette! Oh my gosh. I think— I think this might be.. uhm.. you know what." She mumbled, looking queasy. Even as her gaze swung around warily.
The taxi cab hits something on the road; something Kwabena did not expect to see. The cab lurches briefly, causing the nun in the back seat to bump her head on the ceiling. "Oof!" she cries out. "Please, sir, do be mindful how you're driving!"
Eyes concealed by sunglasses, Kwabena scowls at the rear view mirror. "Listen, you let Kwabena drive, ahkay? I will handah de driving. Please be s-"
One of those rats turned meat puddles ends up kicked up by the car ahead, spraying the passenger side windscreen with blood and gore.
"AIEEEEEE!" screams the nun.
"What de fuck!?" cries Kwabena.
"Oh fun," sighs Illyana. "Exploding were-rats. This is absolutely how I wanted to spend my evening." She extends her hand, and her soulsword appears in it, gleaming with its own silver fire. And then she takes the beautiful blade and uses it to poke the former rat.
Illyana has not been one of those girls who's squeamish about bugs and viscera for a very long time.
Maximus is definitely hard to recognize, currently, but when a rat explodes, his voice comes out very non-feminely Max-ish. "All right, which one of you mutants thinks its funny to make animals explode?! These are creatures of the earth, you twats…" He makes a leaping assumption that its someone with…rat-exploding powers…apparently. He swishes his dress off his leg and puts his heel back on before stepping away from the mess. Steel blue eyes narrow when he spots Lorna and Kaleb, and the nearby Ninette. He sways on over towards them, twirling his purse around one finger. "Well well, do not blame me for this one, I swear…I had no idea you would be here." A grin towards Ninette, "Helloooooo."
Although she doesn't rise from her crouch, Danielle does stiffen at the unexpected presence at her shoulder. She turns her head just enough to give Illyana a mildly huffy sort of glare, but then jerks her chin to indicate the scattering of similar gore and mess around the road and sidewalk. Her gaze lingers on one or two rats scurrying in desperation, and she muses, "When even rodents are running away…" Her duffel gets dropped to a clean patch of pavement, and she unzips it long enough to pull out a … well, it's a pair of intricately decorated hatchets. Because this City. She hefts one hatchet in each hand as she straightens up, peering this way and that along the road.
Morbius turns his head as the rats herd in one direction, then another, his steps curiously wary as he veers in the direction of the odd cluster. Sanguine eyes widen as the rat turns and hisses at its companions then promptly ripples and transforms only slightly then… explodes. A look of confusion, then quick understanding melts into horror. "They're infected…" The light, Greek-accented voice murmurs. His attention flies down the sidewalk and the numerous patrons who litter it. The splashing cab in the nearby puddle sends a violent chill up his spine and presses Morbius to action to try to wave people away from the sidewalk. A long, clawed hand pulling from his pocket, steps are quick when he spots Lorna, Kaleb and Ninette. "What exactly the hell is wrong with you people that you are always /here/ when this happens?" An irritated glance toward Maximus, dismissive. "The blood's infected, I suggest you back away from it." That sanguine gaze lands on Ninette then. "You were the girl who was bitten."
Ninette comes over to Lorna and Kaleb, stepping around the puddle and avoiding the cab spattering the stuff with a quick leap, sticking the landing on those stiletto hills. "Merde," she says in response to Lorna, and "Bon jour," to Kaleb "You look good." Game recognizes game. She stands poised with her hand held up, scanning the area for more expodo-rats. She looks at Maximus and her eyes lid. She considers him carefully, looking him over toe to tip. Finally, she says, "You look good, too. Those heels suit you." Look, there's no emergency so severe fashion wisdom cannot be bestowed.
Illyana shrugs at Dani's glare, almost but not quite an apology, then glances at her hatchets when the other woman draws them. "Nice blades," she offers, but follows the line of Dani's gaze. "The rodents are doing more than running away," she adds, voice pitched low. "When the rodents are exploding, that's when I start to worry."
Kaleb seemed to echo Lorna's disgust for all his own reasons, "Yessss, vermin. Gross." His tongue smacked to the roof of his mouth causing a faint sneer from the haughty teen. The compliment from Ninette was not unmet, but there was a young woman, you know, just materializing a sword like one just does apparently which earned an arched eyebrow. He watched as she poked at the carcass, "Don't breathe in. It's palpable.. If they're doing this I don't know that whatever they got into causing the reaction coud be…very…not…far…from…" Words slowed down as Maximus walked up. Well he was forewarned that Maximus was a different sort of force of nature. For once he had no pithy words and simply blinked.
Lorna dug into her purse, pulling out a handkerchief and pressing it over her nose and mouth. Her gaze moving between each member of the group as they form up around her and Kaleb. Maximus earned a raised brow and a shrug, "I know it wasn't you. You weren't at the last few.. ah.." She trailed off as Morbius approaches, at least she wasn't screaming or freaking out at the sight of the vampire.
"I have a friend, he's biokinetic. He healed her. She's immune now, so you don't have to worry about her getting infected again, or changing or anything. It's a virus, Maximus. It seems to change you into a werewolf, for lack of a better term." She glanced side long at Kaleb. "I have bad luck what do you want?"
Then of course, it seemed that all at once, several of the manholes explode upwards, sailing into the street and crashing into cars and whatever else was in the way. A half morphed cat seemed to come crawling out of one of them, before it too exploded outwards in a burst of muscles, blood and bones.
In other manholes? Oh, that's where the howls came from in the deep. A mutant it seemed, had been turned, and he wasn't exploding. Half transformed, the mutant seemed to originally look to be covered already covered in fur and lacking eyes. A mole-ish person, who was slowly being transformed into a wolf like creature.
"Quiet! Quiet, please!" Kwabena is trying to calm the nun down, when a pedestrian runs out into the road screaming, dead ahead. With a gasp, the Ghanaian lays both feet on the brake, causing the cab to draw to a screeching halt.
More screaming from the back seat.
"Jesus, Christ, stop screaming!"
The nun removes her shoe and promptly throws it at Kwabena's head. Even amidst the chaos caused by exploding were-rats, one cannot simply ignore the taking of the Lord's Name in vein.
"Ow!" The cabbie throws the machine into park, then promptly opens the door and climbs out. He's dressed in his usual summer affair; black tank top (he has a few), brown pants and a new (sort of) pair of (second hand) shoes. He scratches his head for a moment until one of those rats explodes nearby, and the words 'They're infected' can be heard from a familiar voice nearby.
"Infected?" Kwabena darts his face about until he lays silver eyes upon Morbius, at which point he sighs deeply. It isn't until a manhole explodes nearby that Kwabena instinctively armors up, paired with an entirely personal snarl. The African's skin begins rippling and transforming into a rock-like, super-hardened obsidian.
"Is it better or worse that they're exploding?" Danielle wonders aloud as she nudges a different puddle of ex-rat with the toe of her boot. Caution gives way to alert when the manholes go sailing up into the air. "Look out!" she shouts while the metal plates are still going upwards, to warn anyone nearby who might need it. She shoots a glance, then a shrug at Illyana, before gripping her hatchets more tightly and trotting straight towards the nearest newly-opened manhole
Maximus covered her mouth when she hears that its contagious in the air. She nears Morbius, who looks generally pretty tough and hey…she knows how to pick a good guard. "A werewolf? That sounds terrible. So hairy. UGH. And you might explode later."
Ninette shrieks briefly in surprise when the manholes fly into the sky. It's a good thing she's immune because one lands nearby in a puddle of ichor, and she gets splashed. The sound of frustration she makes is both profound and dangerous. That ichor's lucky it's already dead. Her dress is ruined. There's a gobbet in her hair. When an infected rat crawls out of the hole toward her, she thrusts her hand at it, and frost roils off her fingertips. Just a touch to the rat and it starts to freeze. As it expands to blow, ice creeps over it, containing it, for now. "We have got to do something about this!" she looks around for someone she recognizes. "You!" she jabs a finger at Morbius. "Fix this!"
Yes, to Lorna's credit, she wasn't running away screaming this time. Improvement. That at least must cut down on some of Morbius' immediate irritation over the situation. "Biokinetic…" Morbius hums and turns his attention singularly on Ninette with interest. This close, Morbius looks rather alive today but for the deathly palor and the engulfing red of his eyes. Which of course likely means that someone else is far less alive. Zeroing in on the young French woman, he takes a step forward and suddenly the explosive ping of manholes popping up like bounced coins tears his attention away. "Take cover!" Morbius yells in tandem to Danielle, not that there's a whole lot of heads up before the heavy metal finds new homes wedged in cars and cement elsewhere.
"Yes, Madam, I am /trying/ to," Morbius grunts back to Ninette, eyeing her again as she freezes the nearest open manhole. "I will need to see you if I have hopes to understand what it is this…biokinetic man did. But for now…" Those inhuman looking red eyes sweep over Lorna, Ninette and Kaleb. "There are more immediate concerns. They explode when the viral load reaches peak past physical limitations. The blood still infects. THEY still infect. They need to be killed and the gore removed." Taking charge of the sitatuation best he is able. A strange look passed to Maximus, he has no idea what to do with that one, wordless for a moment, Morbius' attention swings toward the women as Danielle trots /toward/ the open manhole. Incredulous, Morbius strides in her direction. "Get /back/, what are you, mad?" His softly trilling accent hard. A hand thrust toward Kwabena. "Weird cab driver man! Did you hear?" Lord does Morbius hate repeating himself.
The fact that the remains are not reacting to her blade suggests to Illyana that these things are not magical. Her nose wrinkles. Lycanthropes should behave like proper lycanthropes and have magic in them. It makes them so much easier for her to deal with.
"Fine," she mutters to herself, nodding to Dani as the other woman heads for the manhole. A moment later she's clad in shimmering armor from foot to throat, though her head and hair remain exposed. The sword remains in her hand, but it's not her real concern right now. A stepping disk opens, and three demons hop out, blue, green, violet. She points at the mole-mutant-werewolf. "Keep him occupied, boys."
Blue and Violet run off to tackle the werewolf. Green, instead, thumbs his nose at Illyana. "I will not fight my brother monster! Werewolves! Join us in overthrowing our human overlords! The monsters united will never be defeated!"
What did Kaleb want? "An espresso with a shot of whiskey in it might be nice. Objectively speaking." And then? Explosions of gore and blood and ratty bits? Exploding in the air and raining from the sky? OH it was like marinara being thrown at a fan. He instantly regretted not taking up Lorna's suggestion to wear his roommates clothes instead of, you know, maybe his regular finery which he will commence in mourning later after his heart was back in his damn chest again.
"God DAMMIT!" His chill was gone and looked to Lorna noting, "Those sewer lids are going to be coming back down. Don't let them hit your car or… people… I guess." Ever the altruist of the group in no situation ever. Now was the time on Lights Out where the things jump out of the dark at you. He looked to the immediate group seeming to judge them slowly, or maybe assess for damages.
Lorna catches the manholes mid-air, keeping them from landing and knocking anyone out. A few, that had been knocked open by smaller creatures, she sets back to where they belong, magnetizing them sealed. The one where the mutant came crawling out? That one she uses to twist and bend into a steel vice, wrapping around the still transforming man. His natural brown hair was slowly peeling back, bleeding off and being replaced with grey fur that crept over what skin still showed his original form.
He snarled, and sobbed as bones snapped and reformed bigger and thicker. His legs bent and claws burst forth and Lorna had to use all of her concentration to keep him bound in the metal as he moved, strong enough to rip free of it if she weren't careful.
"It's a virus, I saw it change a dog before. Now we've got rats, and cats and .. well, people.. Keep an eye out there's never just one." She still looked grossed out by the meat puddles all over. But for the moment, there didn't seem to be more of them.
With Illyana's demons keeping an eye on the one transforming wolf, well, he looked more apt to try to eat them, snarling and snapping in their direction. Ninette's freezing of the rats does seem to hold them, at least for now.
Quickly, Kwabena rips the sunglasses from his face moments before it, too, begins to harden. What was one smooth can now best be described as rough and uneven, like the surface of rock; as if his body's mutation caused a varying transformation that couldn't quite be contained to such a sleek and sexy form. If that didn't give him away as a freak of nature, the slightly glowing, silver eyes sure will.
The shades are tossed into the open window of his taxi cab, and he looks around quickly, checking points. It isn't until he looks up that he spots one of those manhole covers, swaying to and fro as it comes falling down right toward him.
"Shit." He crouches low and makes to catch the thing. When it connects, his arms swing down by the force of it, forearms and manhole cover smashing into the asphalt and denting it. Then, with a grunt and a heave, he lifts the thing up to chest height and swings it bodily toward a crazed rat that is leaping toward his neck. "Battah up!"
The manhole cover connects, sending the rat flying across the street and through a shop window. A little gut-splosion happens moments later, and the people inside the coffee shop begin screaming and panicking.
"Shit," he repeats again, making note to have better aim next time. He was aiming for the brick wall. Spinning about with the cover in hand, he darts a quick look toward Morbius. "Who, me?" cries the Ghanaian over the general din of screams and gutsploding. "Yes, yes, I hear!" He turns around and around, eyeballing for more potential bogeys. "And, it's Kwabena! Kwa-beh-nah!"
Spotting the creature being bound up by metal, Kwabena simply fails to try and figure out who is doing that, but someone clearly is. He grunts, spins around, and flings the manhole cover toward Lorna's prey like it's the goddamned discus throw.
Maximus tries to raid the werewolf's mind before he totally transforms with the instruction to ram his head against the wall. There's no mercy here, but the use of the power is invisible so…no one has to know what she did. As the manhole cover comes back down, he darts out of the way, clicking into the street where now cars have to dodge her.
Ninette eyes Morbius. "Good!" she says to his retreating form. Then she crouches to touch the puddle of gross, shuddering when she makes contact with it. It begins to freeze, forming a layer of frost across the top of it. Upside, it's contained. Downside? It's slick. Another twisted cat comes out of a manhole and she does it the same. The air around her starts to grow colder, radiating out from where she crouches. Colder and colder still, until there's a radius of winter in the middle of summer. The things near her start to freeze.
Danielle does not seem overly inclined to listen to some stranger barking orders at her. It's even possible that she hasn't realized the orders are being barked at /her/. Nonetheless, she's quick on her toes, avoiding the messy puddles as she angles away from the .. thing crawling up from the one manhole, since it appears to be thoroughly handled, and moves towards another hole. "There's gonna be more than one, you just know it," she hollers back towards Illyana, then pauses to point at Green, "No protests without a petition, you!"
Green scowls, blows a raspberry at Dani, then turns to his Blue and Violet brethren to demand they join his protest, only to see werewolf claws rip off one of Violet's wings. "OH MY GOD!!" the demon shouts in horror.
"You going to help now?" Illyana asks.
Green glares at her, doesn't say anything, just runs off to help Violet and Blue.
"Finally," sighs Illyana as a pentagram bursts into light around her.
Lids get caught one way or the other, Lorna's efficiency with her powers proving to be a mighty boon in Morbius' book as she does what she can to cover them and enwrap the transforming mutant. The bloody spray of the ratsplosion that Kwabena bats down the street makes Morbius wince, nodding toward the transformed rock-etched man. "Containment is paramont." Though the women he was rushing toward, yelling at burst into armor and weapons and…demons? The etching on the ground of a pentagram gives Morbius pause. He yells at the hesitating green demon. "/These/ are not monsters! /These/ are human constructs. Perversions of our brothers." He doesn't know the guy, but hell if they all need all the help they can get.
Feeling a shiver in the air, Kwabena briefly glances toward the source of it, a brief break in the mayhem to observe Ninette being similarly not normal. "How many are dere," he wonders to himself, considering the same as a pentagram of light bursts around Illyana.
At this point, the nun back in his cab has locked herself in tight, and is crossing herself repeatedly, again and again.
Considering his options, Kwabena leaves dents in the asphalt while moving to join Morbius, positioning himself back to back. "How de fuck do we contain dis?" he asks. Kwabena is new to this, and all he really knows is 'smash and destroy'. Not really effective at 'containment'.
The trickle of rats and other city dwelling creatures that splatter and snarl, attacking or transforming ceases for a brief moment. All seemed contained for the moment. The manhole that was chucked at the mostly transformed werewolf strikes home, especially as Maximus' command keeps it rooted in place for the maximum amount of damage that could occur to it, clipping off a good portion of the creature's face down to bone and ripping off an eye as it went before rolling away and crashing into the pavement, splattering blood and gore as it traveled. Then it's mind was gone, becoming completely animalistic in rage and hunger.
Lorna stepped away from Ninette as the temperature dropped and winter spread around her. The green haired mutant glanced toward Kaleb, biting her lower lip. "Stay close, if things get worse, I'm flying you out of here." She murmured. Her gaze swinging toward her former roommate Illyana briefly in the chaos and she smiled.
Then from further down the street came a woman. She walked in heels like she commanded the whole of the world, wearing a black skirt and blazer, with black rimmed glasses and her dark brown hair pulled back into a tight bun.
"You don't have to contain this, it's exactly where it was meant to be. Finally."
Kaleb hated being obvious. The fact of the matter though was the location tugged at his sense of 'genetic loyalty' as it were and that said he looked to the few he knew and offered, "I can try to stun em out, but it's temporary. Might…buy time." Said the sonic. There was a pause and he looked to Maximus whom he still could just not wrap his brain around but to assume he could might be folly. "This is not personal." He went to one of the open sewer holes and listened for a moment trying to pull up and amplify the sounds that might be bouncing around down there like a megaphone for a moment before pulling to fingers to his lips. What started off as a shrill whistle immediately squealed up in pitch ramping to a frequency to make dogs within sound distance any anyone else capable of catching that wave possibly wet the carpet. His shirt was ruined. If he repaid the favour a bit he wouldn't feel poorly about it in the slightest.
Green hears that the werewolf is human, and starts to attack with greater ferocity. Granted, he's not precisely a huge deterrent to the beast. He launches himself at the creature, and then he's struck by a huge paw and goes flying toward Central Park. "Vive la resistance!" he screams, words trailing to silence.
Blue starts dragging Violet away from the werewolf as best he can.
Illyana, meanwhile, is ignoring her demons. She can easily track them later. Rather, she feels this is the proper time to start a binding enchantment. She hovers in her pentagram, two feet off the ground, legs crossed, chanting in a language that makes one feel nauseated to hear it.
Morbius has to cant his head slightly to one side on concession to Kwabena's question. "That is a very good question. Crush the rats, do what we can to destroy the animals. The blood needs to be broken down before it's washed away. Fire. Chemical." Morbius' attention slips toward the mutant who is taking a beating. "Him—" The enraged creature given some consideration as demons go flying and words make his stomach tighten slightly. Dizzying. Echoing sound, peculiar nauseating languages, a slight chill from where Ninette freezes the air around her; it's a lot. Morbius looks a little unsteadied, his eyes land on the odd woman walking down the street so very calmly. "And who are you supposed to be?"
Despite the ferocity of the werewolf now behind her, Danielle has seen the various things being hurled at it. If contaminated blood is the issue, then hacking into it with a pair of hatchets could be considered … unwise. Instead, she positions herself in the road, facing the newcomer. "So did you do this, or are you someone else's puppet?" she adds her own challenge to Morbius'. While lightly bouncing one of her weapons as if debating whether, and how hard, to throw it.
The winter around Ninette is unpleasant, but not dangerous to people-sized things. Those little rats, though, they're easier to freeze when they're already cold. She doesn't go after the person-sized ones; she knows she can't kill or contain them. Her chill keeps the puddles frozen. When the woman walks up, she lifts her gaze to her and a snarl twists her pretty face. Ice Princess doesn't even begin to describe the cold look she gives her.
Fire. Chemical.
Kwabena briefly looks toward Morbius, before reaching into his back pocket and producing a switchblade. He begins walking toward the nearest of those parked cars, turning his head the other way in order to gauge the woman who just burst onto the scene and started claiming responsibility, in essence, for what's happening.
When he reaches one of those cars, he crouches down beside it and feels around underneath. Then, with a ferocious motion, he stabs the switchblade right into the fuel tank. When his hand come back out, gasoline is spilling out with it.
His eyes are narrow now, with a lingering sense of menace as he begins stalking toward the next vehicle, switchblade-bearing hand dripping liquid fuel as he goes.
Maximus has no idea who she is, and at the same time, he knows /exactly/ who she is. A reveller. A guilty party. A ringleader. A queen? He can recognize a source of trouble from a mile away. And. He likes her dress. Maximus stays in the street and stands there without concern. A breeze comes and kicks up his dress, making it flap and snap around his wide-stance legs. Similarly, curls play up the drama and he stares at the woman coming down the street like he's about to challenge her to a walk-off. The others' questions all lead to the answer he wants, so he waits for the answer, and stands ready to do what he does second best.
The strange woman smiled, and her canine teeth were longer than anyone's had a right to be. She inclined her head and gestured around her. "Oh yes. You could say, these are my gifts to the world. I could monologue my whole plan, but it seems a moot point when you'll all be converted in due measure. Even if you do keep interfering with the natural order of things. Viruses come and go, they clean the weak from the populace." She pushed her glasses up, and it was obvious they were tinted an orange hue, making her eyes match the lupine sade the other weres had had.
"Just accept that, and everything will be fine." Her voice dropped in tone, her jaw cracking, but it seemed to be it for the moment.
Lorna glanced toward Kaleb, backing up to press her shoulder against his.
Illyana keeps chanting, tuning out the woman — though Blue seems to be wary of her. He keeps between her and Violet.
"Nobody ever monologues properly anymore," Danielle sighs wistfully. "It's becoming a lost art." She takes one step, braces, then /slings/ the hatchet in her right hand towards the strange woman. The small axe spins horizontally as it whips through the air, and Dani herself pushes off her toes to rush straight for the woman in her weapon's wake. The other hatchet is tossed lightly from left hand to right hand as she charges.
With another heavy punch, Kwabena busts the gas tank on another vehicle. Considering how they're scattered around the street, he's choosing ones that will cause the gasoline to spill out, rather than immediately toward the gutters. It would be a waste to send it all down into the sewer system. The thought does cross his mind that, if this hairbrained plan is worth anything, it could result in the entire block being burnt down.
Then again, there is a woman here who seems capable of freezing said block as well. So… there's damage control.
Quietly, he chooses his next prey, stalking toward a hotrod who's driver is crawling off, clutching a bitten leg. It'll be a pity to destroy such a fine automobile, but he's not entirely sure that is why he feels a bit sick to his stomach. Not connecting that it has anything to do with Illyana's chanting, he secretly worries that, perhaps, he's become infected too.
When Danielle makes a move against the monologuing woman, he quickens his pace, and dives below the hotrot to do the dirty deed.
*BANG!*
Kaleb was fairly certain anything down there was not coming up in the immediate area. Well he hoped. What did he know about creatures and their poor life choices anyways. He was winded. Finally his words carried, because he wanted them to and made certain that they got to her. But he wanted her gone and he wanted her to want to leave and the suggestion carried that subliminal need for compliance which, being a crazy fangy woman that would wear black in this heat? Smacked of poor life choices he could not even try to counter in one subtle push. "Why these people? Why not just /go to Jersey/? Tunnel's that way." He pointed to be helpful. There. He was assisting. Go. Shoo. Bad dog.
Vocal chords expanded and bulged around her throat, thickening the muscles around it. Her spine cracked and her fingers lengthened, nails hardening into claws. "It's for the mutants. They'll return to the beasts they, you are. No more powers! No more destruction. Just the animals you are." She snarled, her teeth lengthening to the point that her articulation was becoming troubling.
"The side effects are less than ideal.. but it'll have to do." And then she was bursting out of clothes, ripping fabric and seams as her form doubled in size and blood gushed from her.
Even as Danielle's axe imbedded itself into her head, there was a sickening crack and her head snapped back. The transforming woman's glasses were gone, and her good lupine eye traced after the attacking woman's form with a snarl. Meanwhile… Kwabena's actions continued. Undisturbed, or perhaps rather, unnoticed.
Kaleb's suggestions to flee were swatted away with a feral howl, her mind too far gone to be tempted to leave. This was a wolf that had transformed before..
Illyana's eyes open, and her head snaps back. Brilliant white light shines to the sky as her voice comes louder, still chanting in that inhuman language. The pentagram beneath her expands, stretches, first a yard across, then ten, and soon encompassing the entire intersection. Light stretches along the lines of the star etched within, dancing like lightning.
Ninette turns her attention to Kwabena, and she nods a little. Okay, she sees what he's about. When the gasoline spreads onto the puddles, she eases off her freezing, once again letting the summer heat have them so that the gas can permeate the blood and grossness to break it down. Then she backs away from the woman as she starts to turn, bolting for Kaleb and Lorna. She knows them. She's fought with them before.
Watching the gasoline-dousing in progress, the level of property destruction is kind of impressive as Kwabena gets right to it, Ninette picking up with him. Morbius' upswept brows loft upwards, duely impressed. "Jersey /is/ already hell," Morbius has to pensively agree to the haughty commentary made behind him. He's in need of /answers/, not blood, so he lets Kaleb's commentary settle. Upon seeing Danielle attack the woman, vampiric eyes go wide. "Oh, no…" Too quick for words, transformation hits next and the vampire darts forward, inhumanly quick as he swallows up yards in a moment then halts up short when the dizzying chanting amplifies and the pentagram of light engulfts the whole street—the whole intersection. Uncertain, he yells at Danielle. "Do not get scratched!"
"Dat way," Kwabena murmurs to the man trying to crawl away, while pointing toward the corner of the block. If he's been bitten, he'll need to be dealt with. "Pick it up or you will burn alive." For a moment, he considers stabbing the man in his head. It would have been efficient, but… no. More cars, more fuel tanks.
Stepping over a brilliant band of light coming from Illyana's expanding pentagram, he makes way for the next vehicle. This one is a city work truck, with a fuel tank much larger than most. Yes… this will do nicely. He catches Ninette's eye, and lifts his free hand to make the gesture of a zippo being flicked to life.
Heads up, sugar. This shit's meant to burn.
Reaching the truck, he's forced to pause and steady himself. It is the chanting. Each word causes his stomach to double over in rhythm with Illyana's voice. Silver eyes loll a bit as he tries to fight against it, and begins fumbling around beneath the truck to find the fuel tank.
Kaleb was out of his dpeths as a novice. His ability to mitigate his output vs. feedback has been dicy at best since he came back and has started really pushing himself. Odds were great and for whatever reason he could think of be it likly doing as much damage to Morbius and Maximus and anyone else with an M name caught up in the fallout as he would to the woman who probably wore white after Labor Day. His heart was doing about 280 in his chest though he'd never admit it but the thawing mutant running at them. "Venez ici" He motioned for Ninette to hurry up not entirely certain what he'd actually do if anything followed, but what was important was the feral woman didn't know that and that too was presently valuable.
Danielle catches enough of the warning to understand, and now that she has the werewolf lady's full attention, some distant corner of her mind, perhaps that occupied by a certain fortune-teller, chides her for her foolhardy attack. Instead of trying to barrel into the changing woman directly, Dani instead kicks her feet forward and baseball-slides the last yard or so. She aims the heel of one boot for the woman's ankle, even as she snaps her second hatchet up towards the opposite knee.
A final word, the loudest yet, no more understandable, no more logical than any that came before it. The sounds cannot be made by a tongue restricted to Euclidean geometry, cannot be replicated by any alphabet known to man.
Just to one woman.
And then the chant is over, and Illyana's head snaps forward once more, her arms rising as the light from the pentagram, now large enough to encompass a city block, entangles the werewolves and rats and every other creature in its reach that has been transformed by this virus, yanking them down, binding them with Limbo's hideous magic.
Blue shrieks in fear. Limbo magic is serious business.
Click, click, click, click, clickclickclickclickclick. Maximus flees the street and steps up onto the sidewalk when he can see gasoline rolling all over the place. Explosions? FUCK. He pulls out what looks like a make-up compact, but the way it whirs…its definitely not that. "So…all we have to do is get her to eat this." He informs MORBIUS, nearest to the woman and the one not trying to explode anything. "That'll kill her. Since you seem…brave." Creatures are being yanked to limbo though, so…possibly not necessary. THough…hilarious if someone nice has been infected and they have to get dragged to hell for the greater good!
Lorna stared in horror as slowly she came to realize that there were plans in motion that involved setting the street on fire. It took Ninette racing toward her to move and by then, she was grabbing Kaleb's arm and making to try to tug him back with her to flee down the street toward her car. Which, luckily, she could move with worry— it was near the end of the street opposite of the battling weres.
"C'mon, we gotta get out of here!" She hissed, beckoning Ninette along with her.
The woman transformed into a were doesn't even seem to care about the kick at her now thickened and twistedly wolf-ish ankle. Her large maw gaped open, an axe still embedded in her skull did not seem to slow her down overly as she snapped at Danielle. The axe ripping into her lower body however, did catch her attention. A roar of pain followed another spout of gore and blood that splattered over the pavement.
Then came Illyana's light show as the creatures that were transformed were bound to the ground. A universal cry of pain and anguished howls echoed down the street. Clearly, there were several unseen, fully transformed wolves on the block. It was infested.
The truck's fuel tank takes two strikes, the second paired with a painful wince. The African's body may be supersolid, but that does not mean these acts are painless. Fuel comes spilling out gallon by gallon, spurting along the asphalt and into the street. The switchblade is done for, so Kwabena drops the mangled item into the smelly liquid while quickly rushing now toward the next vehicle. There is a brief moment where awe strikes his eyes when the magical beams ensnare their victims, but he's focused on his task. They're running out of time.
He's not wasting any time now. He comes upon another vehicle and throws his leg into the car, leaving a gaping hole that spills forth its fillings.
rHis taxi cab is next. With a grimace, he rips open the rear passenger door and pulls the praying nun out bodily. "Run!" he hisses to her, before diving for the front passenger door and reaching for the glove box. There, he curses for a moment while fumbling about for something.
Danielle rolls with her own momentum, tumbling to a stop in a kneeling-sorta position and twisting to face the monster-lady again. "Bet that monologue is pretty tempting now, hunh?" she taunts, wagging the blood-stained hatchet at the injured werewolf. She can smell gasoline. She can see magic light. She's… not entirely clear what the actual plan is, but if she keeps the Bad Lady's attention, then maybe Bad Lady won't figure out the plan either.
The odd light with the unnerving symbol and the ungodly chanting making him nauseated? Yeah, that's a hell of a thing. Morbius is a man of science and /this/…well there's good reason he allied himself with Strange to deal with /this/ bullshit. He himself is not worried by the gasoline, fumes or fire. More concerned with Danielle attacking the woman head on like that and the myriad howls which pipe up throughout the neighborhood. His stomach drops, turning his head to one side and noting… … Maximus? The woman click-clacks her way to him. with a makeup compact? "What? No…what are you doing here still, woman? Get to safety." Utterly confused by what he's being shown. "We don't need any more innocent bodies getting infected. We need answers from her…"
Ninette nods to Kwabena. Right. Fire! She runs on those heels, putting her weight on her toes, not that little spindle of painted wood on each heel. "Oui, nous courons maintenant!" she says to Kaleb and Lorna both, not that they need to be told they're running now. Oh yes, running. "What about the pale one?" she asks, breathless. "He's going to die!"
Kaleb was not one to stand down he was also not one to ruin his clothes being a hero either. Ninette was back over to be part of an evac plan. What about the pale one? Kaleb looked at her incredulously and had the look of oh god damn you and your Valentinos, woman! He didn't have to say it, but the point was fair that he had answers and a possible solution. He could justify this as him having something he wanted and go home and sleep at night comfortably selfish and guilt free right? Oui? Indignantly he rolled in a brisk pace as his long legs carried him, and wiped splody rat blood from his face and flicked it on the cround. "Gentlemen, I do believe we may want to leave…perhaps quickly? Does anyone live in the sewers as they may catch if this place gets combustable."
Maximus arches her brows at Morbius and then lifts her chin. There's a dramatic turn and then she clickclickclickclickclicks her way back to the sidewalk, dodging little frozen ratscicles and imprisoned cats and dogs. She heads into whatever is the nearest building, to watch.
The creature was bound in the center of the street, snarling and roaring and generally struggling against the magical bonds that Illyana had inflicted on it. Slowly the flesh where it had been hit by axes was beginning to knit back together. The same could be said for the other transformed wolves still bound in the street.
Lorna ground to a halt, glancing back toward Kaleb as he ran, not for the car but Morbius and Maximus. She hissed under her breath, nearly rolling an ankle as she twisted around to try to catch his arm. "Kaleb! C'mon! We gotta get out of here!"
Finally, Kwabena finds what he's looking for; a business card, and his beat up, old zippo. He slams the door and briefly checks to make sure that the nun is, in fact, running away, before he scrambles over toward Lorna, Kaleb, and Ninette. "Listen," he quietly but urgently says to the latter, "How low can, I mean to say, if fuel go undah de street, and it…" English is not his primary language, and when rushing, it's broken and difficult. "Can you freeze undah? If de, what is it, de sewahs? If dey fill? Can you keep city from burning? Street must burn, but not whole fucking city!"
He darts silvery eyes toward the combat taking place between Danielle and the transformed woman-beast, while also noting how Illyana's magic seems to have pinned the creatures down. They're in position, many of them writhing in the spilt gasoline.
"It's now or nevah, must get her out of dere!" He holds up his zippo-wielding hand indicatively.
"Gimme that," Danielle warily approaches the bound werewolf, making sure to avoid struggling claws until she can put her boot on the back of the creature's neck. Only then does she reach down to yank that hatchet out of her enemy's wound. If it's healing up, she's not keen to lose one of her blades. "I know this is working out the way you really wanted it to, so… you'll forgive me if I don't stick around?" She shakes both hatchets to rid as much blood and goop from the steel as possible, before glancing over towards the others. The stink of gasoline is …distressingly strong now, so she opts for darting out of the roadway, towards the edge of the glowy white markings.
Ninette slows as Kaleb goes back for Morbius, and she looks at Kwabena. English isn't her first language either. "You want me to…" She points down at the sewer. She pulls a face, then looks down at her nice shoes. They're ruined too, and she sighs. She looks to Lorna and Kaleb, but she already knows the answer. She can freeze the immediate area where gasoline has poured into the sewer. Maybe not further out, but further out the stuff's diluted. She works the logistics in her head and, defeated on behalf of her fashion sense, she says, "I have to touch ze water." She peers down the manhole again. "How do I get there?"
"Either kill them or tell me where to put them," says Illyana, her teeth clenched and her eyes still shining a blinding white. "But do it soon. I can only hold them so long!"
"Sorry," Kwabena tells Ninette. He wouldn't want to go down there, either. However, at Illyana's words, the Ghanain spins his head back around and curses. "Fuck!" He watches Danielle booking it, then reaches out and shoves the business card into Kaleb's hand. "Find phone." It's a business card for one George Stacy, Captain, NYPD. "Tell him to hurry."
The zippo is lifted in his left hand - the one that hasn't been used to punch open fuel tanks. It's clicked, and sparks, but… nothing. Again, nothing.
"What?"
Another click, nothing. Click, click, click.
"Dammit!!"
One final click and a flame spurts forth, coming to life. Kwabena gasps and throws the thing out into the street, where it lands just next to a puddle of pooling gasoline and gore. The flame flickers once, twice in the wind, threatening to go out as the gasoline seeps toward it…
The dramatic look from Maximus and the likewise turn and stroll away is given a perplexed look from Morbius. Clearly he's missed something in that exchange among all the madness, not understanding. The rapid clicking of heels away from him followed and Kaleb, either snared or not, tells them to get a move on. Power of Suggestion's a powerful thing folks. Especially when you KNOW it's a stupid idea to stay. But he still seems conflicted as he nods to the young man and looks back toward the wreckage of the street, Illyana and Danielle. "Of course there are people who live in the sewers," He doesn't remember who said it but there was some question about it. Unsure of Illyana's powerset aside from 'demon summoning' and 'big light of doom that snares', the vampire tries to bolt in that direction, telling Illyana and Dani both over the din of madness. "We can't kill them all. They regenerate too quickly, their allergy is too limited. They're lighting the street on fire. You need to remove yourself." And hopefully catch some of the creatures in the mess. "I need /her/," A twisted finger points at the creature knitting itself together from axe wounds. "To answer for this!"
Fire has a sound, did you know that? Morbius knows that. It /roars/ as it consumes oxygen and fuel around it. No roar yet, but that tiny little flame that could will catch any split second.
Maximus is calmly watching from a window. He doesn't want to miss the exploding street or all the were-things catching on fire and screaming as they burn. He's very interested in seeing this all happen, apparently well aware of what the cabbie had planned. A woman inside the building, also, brings Maximus a cup of water in one of those paper, conical cups with a deadish look in her eyes and then moves off. If Kaleb and Lorna still aren't off the street, away from firesplosions then he'll try to ping them with a little inspiration to come on in the shop, its great!
Kaleb was officially in a dour mood. You know what? Let them burn. He ran away from anything wet and from being downwind because if anything caught? Well that's where it was going next. He was happy to get word out. Was he selfish? Yes. Did he want to hear about mutant who didn't deserve any of this burning in the paper and his family acquaintances talking about how /thankfully/ it happened there to 'those' people instead of the goodly folk? Well he might have to accidentally remodel a country club if that happened. yeah. whoops.
Kaleb ran towards the nearest manhole, slipped and caught the edge of it with his hand sliding on one shin across the slick pavement. He yelled into the hole and pushed his will to ricochet that sound as he could and ramped the volume as he backed it. "GAS FIRE IN TE STREET! RUN" It was suddenly very hot on his right side and it was not because he was in Key Largo right now. Mental note: soon, be in Key Largo. He earned that. Scrambling to his feet he continued to evade and run in the most direct route away. Why didn't bhe borrow Jay's clothes? He didn't have to ruin his slacks but did he listen? Of course not. Would he learn from this? He swore so hard at himself internally. Of course he wouldn't. He was 18, he still had no idea what listening meant.
Lorna was already running back toward her car and down the street when the fire erupted from Kwabena's lighter. The sudden burst of light and heat was immense, and the creatures that had been infected? Oh they burned. They burned just like anything else coated in gas. The fire caught quickly, racing down the street, catching a boost at each car that caught a spark and lit up the gas tank.
Lorna twisted on her heels, and with her hands thrown up, pulled metal strapnel to her, backing away as she created a shield of solid steel and iron. The wall rose with each explosion of a car, creating a blast shield to protect Ninette and Kaleb and.. well who ever had managed to get behind her.
The rest.. was left to the flames.
Ninette is so confused. She's looking into the sewer only to see it's already sealed off. The fire's already coming down. Basically, unless someone grabs her, she is not having a good day.
Maximus can mind control her to come into the nearby shop when it looks like she's lingering too long, if that's helpful!
In her armor, Illyana does not fear flame. It was made, after all, to preserve her through the hell that is Limbo. She's tired, but the wolves are aflame, and she can almost rest — once she rescues the ice woman from the blaze. A pair of teleportation disks flicker into existence as the light fades from the pentagram and from Illyana's eyes. She and Ninette disappear from where they stand (well, where Ninette stands, where Illyana floats) and drop them into a safe location a block away.
Kwabena is already backing off with Lorna and Kaleb when the fire catches. He's immediately filled with regret, but at the end of the day, it's a great deal better than letting those beasts and their infections run rampant. This is how he's already justifying it in his mind, and he's probably right. What he can't calculate yet is how many bottles it will take to swallow the decision.
He looks from the metal walls that form to Lorna, blinking his silver eyes garishly. "How…"
… asked the man with a body of super hardened flesh.
Kaleb stood up as Lorna built the wall past him. With the ruin of hte day in his hair and smeared on the left side of his body he very, very carefully rolled his cuffs back and tucked his tie back in. He looked at teh Ghanian and cleared his throat. In a most formal invite while the flames burned in front of him and behind the man he addressed he answered his question. "Welcome to Mutant Town."
Warning is all they can do at this point. The flames catch, that roar howls as amber light fills the evening sky, flashing and violent, adding its own immolating heat to the thick, humid summer air. Kaleb's words still ringing in his ears, Morbius inhales sharply and in a blink is simply /gone/. Moving at superhuman speeds, the pale man seems to vanish for an instant when he catches sight of Ninette, standing near a closed off manhole. The woman who had worried about him earlier, and (perhaps more importantly) the woman with the antibodies. Groaning to himself, Morbius' feet skid on the pavement as he jack-knifes to one side and darts for the mutant woman. Rudely without so much as a 'hello', the homeless-looking man sweeps Ninette up in his arms, clutching her against his chest, "Hold your breath." And darts away to race the fire. Flames licking at his jacket and scorching bits of his hair as he bolts across a catching pool of gasoline, breaking out of the sacrificial area. FLEE!
Ninette, thinking she's going to die, responds by uttering an unholy snarl of outrage. How dare events conspire!? She's making a mental tally of all the people she's going to haunt when there's a *blip* and a few things happen. First, she's away from the fire. Second, Morbius having been caught up on Illyana's teleportation disc, is holding her in his arms. She blinks a few times. Then squirms to be put down. She pauses to tell Illyana, gravely, "Merci, merci, thank you." Then, to Morbius, "Merci. Who told him to drop ze flame so soon? I must strangle them."
Lorna keeps the giant wall of scrap metal up as it becomes hot, blocking the flames from spreading beyond and effectively blocking a wind from fanning it further, at least from her side of the street. She slowly lets her hands drop back when she's pretty pleased that the wall isn't going to come crashing down. She winced, biting her lower lip as she glanced behind her. Her gaze falling on those that had escaped the flames.
Here's hoping that more people got out on the other side.
She flashes Kwabena a smile and shrugs, "It works for me." She moved toward Kaleb, glancing over him as he greeted the cabbie and she rolled her eyes. Then her gaze landed on Illyana, Morbius and Ninette. She sighed.
"We had better get out of here, but we also need to talk, I think. I can fit the three of you in my car if you want?"
If anything, Kwabena is the definition of 'closeted mutant'. He's worked very hard to keep his talents hidden, but the past two weeks have blown that cover in many ways.
He turns to Kaleb, sighing deeply. In the process, his body begins reverting to its normal form, the act riddled by cracking and popping sounds. It isn't just his skin, after all; it's everything.
"Yeah," he remarks sarcastically. "We all fit right in, don't we?"
Suddenly, he's looking around with a wild look in his eye. "Where is de ice woman?" he asks, then raises his voice. "Where is she!!?"
Finally spotting them, he settles down and looks back toward Lorna. "Yes, but, let us ask her if she can out fire out. Yes?"
Danielle finds herself on the far side of the flames, bereft of duffel and goopy of jeans. She watches the fire burn for a few moments, then realizes she's got a pair of bloody hatchets in hand. That… might lead to difficult questions if she's around when police and firemen arrive. With a snort, she turns and wanders off into the evening, trusting the others made it out without incident.
Kaleb looked to Kwabena and squint shaking his head before looking around. "We should never be forced to 'fit in'." His hand estended out and tried to find pockets of sound to amplify sloooooly panning like he was playing Marco Polo. He envied bats right now. FInally he said "Oh this is stupid." He sighed deeply can called out broadcasting his voice to stretch hoping Ninette was within range of hearing the amplified 'signal', "Ninette, pouvez-vous eteindre le feu?" He waited for…well he didn't know what. To Lorna and Kwabena, "We can ask her. No promises."
Teleportation doesn't agree with everyone. Morbius is running and the next moment he goes 'poof' from existence, carrying Ninette, and blips back in wherever Illyana drops them. Halting all of the sudden, there's confusion all across his face, trying to make heads or tails of what just happened. Blinking a couple of time, Morbius lowers Ninette upright on the ground. "I apologize for grabbing you, Miss. I don't think the timing of the fire was, ah, intentional." The sidewalk burns a distance from them, upswept brows crumpling with consternation. "She burned with them." Looking back to Ninette, "You are the last hope for the other infected, now. We have no way of telling where it originated. To what ends." Loudspeaker Kaleb has him turning his attention vaguely in that direction. "Your companions, they are looking for you."
Ninette calls back to Kaleb, "Non, briser une bouche d'incendie." What's a little more damage to Mutant Town? To Morbius, she says, "Don't be such a pessimist. Come on." She takes Morbius by the arm and leads him toward Kaleb and Lorna. "Break a fire hydrant," she repeats, in English. She pats Morbius on the arm. "We will find out what happened. There are more like her, I bet." She offer Lorna a small smle. "Is everyone safe?"
Lorna blinks at Ninette as she closed the distance to them, "Oh! I didn't think of that," A pause, "Wait, is putting water on a gas fire a good idea?" She tilted her head and bit her lower lip before she shrugged, something had to be done. Green eyes flicker toward Morbius. "Hey, my friend who looked at her can help with the people that are infected. He might be able to reverse it. Okay? So don't go running off with her to some dungeon for her blood, got it?" She glanced back toward Kaleb and exhaled a breath. So much for finding Josh as she'd planned.
Another time.
"I'll be right back, okay?" Then Lorna glanced around, they likely didn't have much time left until the cops and fire department arrived. But there was a fire, every second counted right? So she was up in the air before her thought had finished, touching down onto a nearby building that over looked the other side of the street that was still on fire. And promptly searched out the fire hydrant, with a look of cocentration, twisted off the steel bits that stoppered the water, unleashing it onto the street around it in a great burst of water.
When Morbius and Ninette draw closer, Kwabena seems to calm further still. "Yes," he tells Kaleb. "In… an ideal world."
He looks on as Lorna rises, then decidedly makes for a phone booth. He has a call to make, but it will be quick, and he will rejoin the others before they depart.
Nothing. ever. went. as planned. Kaleb had really just gotten used to teh idea that his calander had become some malleable, incendiary thing. His eyes watched the inferno, "Ya know, that fire catches to teh buildings they have gaslines and boilers that can go, not to mention the sunstructures…foundation layers…" He sighed and pulled his cheeks in and looked to Kwabena, "She couldn't jsut…go to Jersey? Still, yes, in an ideal world. Change doesn't happen on its own, there's got to be a catalyst. Someone's got to say something or try things or this will happen and the city will go on just not giving two shits." His eyes drifted from teh fire to teh cab driver a last time observing, "Someday we convince that to change. TOnight? Tonight we put out a fire before half of us blow up I guess."
Kaleb goes home.
Morbius plucks his hood up over his head as Ninette leads back toward the direction of her friends, lagging behind several yards rather than closing the distance entirely. Lorna tells him not to kidnap Ninette, that she has a solution, softly glowing, red eyes narrow from under his hood. Before he can open his mouth, she flies off to take care of the fire. Instead, Morbius turns to Ninette and very evenly states, his voice tense and clipping the soft rolls on all his 'r's. "Young lady, I am returning to my 'lair' to tend to the rest of the sick, hopefully before they explode like those rats. If you decide to assist, I am available. I would hate to kidnap an unwilling soul."
Ninette pats Morbius on the arm and says in a tone of reassurance, "If you tried to kidnap me I would freeze you." She studies him for a moment, then says, "Are you a doctor? I'll help you if you're a doctor. Do you have a needle? To take a sample of my blood?" Because doctors just carry those around, right? "I have antibodies," she explains. "If you don't, give me your number. I'm not going anywhere looking like this."
Lorna came off the rooftop just as quickly as she had perched up there. A slightly pinched look in the furrows of her brows and the thinning of her lips followed and she touched down on the side of her metal wall near Ninette and Moribus. "Hey, the firemen and cops are on their way from the other side. We gotta get out of here. Exchange information, or something. Or come in my car, I don't care. But we gotta get out of here before we start getting questioned why everything is how it is. Yeah?" A glanced toward Kwabena and Kaleb, and she offered a nod in passing.
Right now, Kwabena could really use a smoke. Sadly, they are burning up in his taxi cab. He should have nabbed them.
"Dis shit's been de same for some genahrations," he levels, glancing back toward Kaleb after finishing his phone call. "Always de same. Probably will be for our lifetimes." It isn't pessimism, not really… it's realism.
"De gas will burn quickly," he points out. Then, he glances toward the others. The Ghanaian draws a deep breath, then turns without another word and begins running in the opposite direction. Time to become scarce.
Morbius takes a step away from where Lorna lands, keeping some distance between himself and the woman not comfortable around him. A nod passed toward Kwabena in agreement to one thing or another. "You were very helpful, thank you. I am sorry for the vehicle." Pause. "Again." Lightly glowing eyes graze across all present, even Lorna, though it doesn't dally on her for long. "You all were." Pivoting away, a clawed hand reaches into his pocket, producing an off-white, bent-cornered card to Ninette. "Good evening."
"Au revoire," Ninette calls to Kwabena as he starts to take off. He's got the right idea. She plucks the card from Morbius' hand and tucks it in her little clutch purse which has somehow survived the carnage. "I will call you. I must go now so I can scrub until my skin comes off." So polite. She nods to Lorna and heads toward her car. She can't run fast, not on these heels, so the car it is.