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Midday in Brooklyn, nothing to see here across the river but a labour protest of some type. Men mostly in coveralls carry signs against foreign companies, aliens, and other protests. Their demands for a wage hike are a chant heavy on the air. Mostly they prevent buses from getting through and the drivers have all but abandoned any hope of getting into Manhattan any time soon. Grey slush lies on the ground, and the sky threatens to throw down flurries. Wanda is not the average homeless looking girl scampering between buildings, but rather dressed in her long burgundy coat, hands jammed in her pockets. The last pedestrians disgorged from an idling bus are following her, dodging through traffic.
Sitting on a third floor balcony is one furry female named Tigra, grateful the apartment renters aren't home at the moment. She's not hiding, but isn't advertising her presence as she watches the protest, hoping it doesn't get out of hand. Desperate people, strong emotions, frustration and missed schedules can do that, and she fears having to intervene.
"Buy American goods! Keep a brother in a job!" The signs match some of the slogans. The gentlemen are full of warm macaroni and soup doled out from Thermoses, and they endure the cold well enough. Wanda, being of somewhat hardy stock, just wants to cross the damn street. She scowls slightly as she tries to find a pause between one set of people and the next, but they don't make it easy for her. Streetlights flick green to yellow to red, and no one pays them any heed. Someone leans on their horn. Another driver rolls down the window and shouts, "Hey, buddy, gas ain't free!"
Hmm. Ideas. She puts her hand down on the snowy hood of the Chrysler, and steps up onto the chrome bumper when someone jostles her. The horn blares again. Too bad, she's getting from point A to B.
Tigra's tail flicks lightly as she tries to not get invested in the aims of the protest, varied as they might be. She can see more than one side to the issues, but dwelling will only distract her. And in the face of everything else that's out there…
No, it's not free, but at least it's plentiful. Heaven help them if something happens to the gas she has to think to herself. Absently, she tilts her head seeing a woman climb onto a car, a nd then grins slightly at the sight. Ahh, that's creative.
Everyone has issues. Everyone wants their moment in the sun, their cash in the pocket, the paycheque not eaten up by foreign imports or jobs going anywhere. Nothing changes since the Roman Empire, really. Just the name of the coins. She makes a noise back at the vehicle beeping at her, ignoring the loud edges. All brittle and idle sounds of a humming engine rev slightly. The vehicle lurches. She hops back and Wanda hits the ground, both feet nimble and light, pushing her way past another of the vehicles before the driver can get out. He's steamed up, though, shouting after a diminishing figure.
Someone has the bright idea to throw a protest sign at the streetlights, though, and the commotion becomes more of a pool house hubbub than not. So damn noisy! Tigra might watch someone hurling shoes up there, and then out comes a switchblade to carve 'NO FOREIGNERS' onto a bus bench. Graffiti! Gasp!
And what have the Romans ever done for us, anyway? Besides the roads, the aqueduct and the ampitheatre. Tigra tenses briefly at the sound of the engine, but the woman dances clear of the car, and Tigra relaxes again. Relatively speaking. And then a sign gets thrown, before the flash of metal announces a knife being brandished—not in violence except to inanimate objects, though. Her tail moving more vigorously, Tigra starts to think maybe she should go somewhere else, lest she over react.
Taught everyone to conjugate their verbs properly, or they will, in about six years when a certain Flying Circus gets their act together. Regardless, they might chuckle at the demonstration of union men figuring out how to hoist up a particularly acrobatic member of their number to sling another pair of work boots over the electric wires. Now, where they get these from when it's cold outside is a matter of maybe being tipsy. But the splintering on the bench is exciting, and they nudge one another. "Hey, you could write it on the cars too!" Someone has a terrible idea.
Of course, it's not like the parked cars are defended by anyone.
A Flying Circus? No, no, this has gotten entirely too silly. Shoes on electric wires is one thing, but if someone -touches- them while they're doing it… Tigra moves to sit on the edge of the balcony railing, now, letting her legs dangle, letting herself be seen more easily. Hopefully that will help instill a sense that peopl are being watched. Hopefully.
Does someone snatch up those rubber sneaks? Look out for the strings dangling there. The human tower teeters and leans, shouts encouraging them to hurry up before the cops get there. What cops? None in sight, of course. All said and done, it's good.
Now, then, comes the shriek of metal. Oh, maybe one or two people see the green tiger. They point out the woman, but the madcap invulnerability is just too strong to deny.
Okay, now she really feels like she can't just let things go. Tigra pushes off from the balcony, dropping the twenty or more feet to the ground, landing with crouched legs and effortless grace before trying to get through the crowd towards where metal is being scrapped, while trying to also keep an eye on the human tower. She should've stayed in bed.
SKREE!!!
No, it's not Rosemarie in full chocobo mode, but rather the switchblade arcing along a steel door. The first stroke for an N cuts through the hideous powder blue paint and might improve the resale value. Then another angular scratch. See, people loitering, covering up the source of the noise. Good luck determining that when the crowd in general on the road continues to implore New Yorkers not to settle for all the outsiders making their fair city rotten. Worms in the Big Apple, bad.
Yep, try to slip through, and it's a pair of Italian boys who might be cousins and a few more of assorted extraction all hovering around them. Not literally.
It's difficult to zoom on in the sound of the knife, with the background hubbub, but not impossible for Tigra, especially the closer that she gets. At one point she resorts to physically lifting a protestor by a firm grip on his shoulders to set him aside and out of her way as she moves in closer. "If someone's scratching up cars," she calls out in a loud voice as she believes she gets closer, "they'd better stop before the superhero who can find them anywhere in this city reaches them."