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The Community Garden is smack dab in the center of Mutant Town, it's rather large, about two houses wide and surrounded by a wooden fence. Everywhere is covered with various trees and bushes and small fields of ground vegetables, the fence in the front has a gate, also wooden, on either side there are metal ravens, the gate doesn't have a lock, it never did. Anyone who has come to the community garden knows that it is always open if someone needs to eat. There is a small shed in the back, not large at all, about the size of a small garage, this is also wooden. Around the outside of the shack are various tools for gardening, a bucket full of well used gloves, shears, a garden hoe, etc. For the most part, the garden is friendly, amiable, a relaxing atmosphere for those who travel through it. That is until this evening.
A large group of young men are gathering around the outside of the community garden, some of them with beers, some with bats, laughing it up outside. The two men in the center, tall guys with rather muscular arms have one them large, what look like they could be guns but they are huge, the barrels are wide and they are… terrifying to say the least. They don't look like anything from this world, to say the least.
"Fuckin' Mutie Scum, what say you boys to havin' a little fun tonight?" says one of the gun totin' jerks, to which he is met with a round of hoopin' and hollerin' of his name and "Yeah, Ronnie!" Ronnie, then, elbows the guy next to him. "Come on, then Chaz, let's light this place up."
Chaz, circles around back to where the shed is and Ronnie, takes the front of the garden. When the triggers are pulled, the guns spray a flaming ooze that rapidly ignites as soon as it meets the wood. The gang of merry jerks, about twelve in total start cheering, loudly, somewhat drunkenly while the garden and the shed go up in flames. Anyone, anywhere in Mutant Town could see this fire as it rapidly becomes larger.
Few people know that Carson, the young man who owns the Community Garden, sleeps in the shed in the back. Few people know until know that is. As smoke sneaks into the cracks, Carson starts to cough. He wakes up with a start though, because Carson can /speak/ to his plants and Carson hears them /screaming/. Not thinking, he goes to grab the handle of his door, burning himself in the proccess, panic rising up in his throat to make him start screaming. "HEY! HELP!!" As he pulls his shirt up around his nose.
Jean often does her best to blend in, but spending most of her childhood at Xavier's means she certainly has sympathy for her fellow mutants. It's what originally brought her into M-Town - an empath can offer a sort of comfort to the oppressed that few others can. Unfortunately for Jean, wandering the streets with a somewhat open mind is a dangerous endeavor when there are hateful people starting fires. From a couple of blocks away, she can feel the fear and the panic and…someone else who's in pain. It's enough to stagger her for a moment before she closes her eyes tightly, trying to push the other feelings out. "Oh no," she breathes, breaking into a run as she makes for the garden.
As the dozen or so humans have gathered a large, dark shape has been watching them, lurking in the shadows of an overgrown wisteria (though since Carson no doubt encouraged it to grow to this size, is it really *over*grown?) and a set of potted Japanese maple trees towards the front of the garden. Now there's fire, though, and Carson is yelling, so Fjorskar pushes out between the leaves and begins negotiating a path to the shed which won't catch any of her feathers or fur on fire.
Jay knows Carson and the garden fairly well. After all that's happened recently, he's been spending more time in that general vicinity. The calm of the plants and the business of keeping busy as autumn comes around and the garden needs to be prepped for the change of seasons, it's been a blessed distraction when he needs it. Away from familiar territory. The regularity has been increasing, and is no surprise when the red-head with the stolen angel wings turns the corner around the block. Hands in his pockets with with the loose amble of someone in no real hurry in life or in this moment, Jay's brows dip together when he notices a gathering of people outside the garden.
That could be good!
He tries to be optimistic about it, though something looks…wrong. Jay's seen crowds out to cause trouble before, so just as his smile is born, it wilts and a tremor runs through his wings. No. No, none of this looks right.
FIRE!
Definitely not right! Pulling his hands from his pockets, Jay starts running, his wings lifting up and away from his shoulders, instintually trying to make himself look larger than he is. "HEY! GIT OUTTA HERE!" He calls out, and in a breath, the voice /booms/ far larger than it should. Splitting on itself, calling out in a baritone command of several voices at once like the god damn wizard of oz or something.
|ROLL| Wither +rolls 1d20 for: 2
The thing about gangs of flatscans gathering with baseball bats and beers in this neighborhood, if that Mutant Town's learned from some experience what to expect from that. Dizzy's at the bar wagging half-smoked cigarette to Elmo. "Anyhow, for most stuff, you wanna rewire almost everything if you wanna go twelve volt. Could be worth it, though, you want a new radiator, and alternators are just lighter, so's you…"
Just then, one of the neighborhood kids bursts through the door, shouting "Trouble! Buncha normies with guns and stuff at the gardens!" Dizzy glances over to Elmo, and says, "Guess that's my cue, better go. She scoops up a few circular beer-platters by the taps, and says, "Ay, Bill, mind if I borrow these?"
Wither had spent a rough nine months in the news for his trial because people wanted to blame him and Mutants for all their ails in the world. He'd been tryin to hold onto that optimism he had when he was a student, but it was things like this that made him understand exactly what Doug has been telling him for a little while. It was heartbreaking. He usually avoided the garden and anything organic. The smell though was enough smoke that was making the tunnels unsafe. Fire… everywhere. The gloves came off, and almost predictably that short fuse of the artist was flipped.
Kevin's Green eyes went angry and— no he didn't Hulk out, don't be ridiculous. He did barrel at the asshole closest to him, "GET THE HECK OUTTA OUR TOWN, COCKWEASEL!" Sure he wouldn't swear but apparently was a total hypocrite where vulgarities were concerned. Oh yeah, bareknuckled Wither took a punch at the guys' face. This could go really bad, very very fast.
"I got a converter to handle that," Elmo is telling Julie, tapping off the ash of his own smoke, "built it myself," which means it's got his mad-engineering touch to it and isn't any normal converter, nor does it convert any normal thing. He's about to go on when the kid brings news of trouble. "Shit! YOUR cue?!" He and Julie bolt out the door, running towards the garden. Elmo pulls a handful of batteries out of his pocket and there's a whine of electricity as he charges them up.
Some of the guys in the back, the ones that only have bats and beers, startle at the sound of several baritone voices telling them to get lost, and at three of them turn tail and run. Muties might be abominations but you know what they also are? Mutants, sometimes they spit fire, breathe acid or can shoot bullets from their eyes. Shit's scary, man. So they take off, taking their bats with them. Takes the group from twelve drunk jerks to nine, two still with rather large alien tech.
The flames grow higher as Chaz fires again at that shed, clearly intending to take out whatever breed of mutant happens to be inside there screaming. He laughs at the barrage of voices barreling down at him. "C'mon then, set you on fire too." He yells, casting his chin up at the sky, welcoming whoever happens to be yelling at him. Due to the largeness and vastness of the fire, Fjorskar is mostly hidden, looking like wind whipping the flames around.
Ronnie on the other hand turns his back on the garden, satisified with it and ready to meet whoever is coming next to defend it. "I ain't afraid of no mutie!" He yells, that is until Kev comes over and tackles one of his goons and his clothes start to literally ash in front of his eyes. Said friend screaming in pain. Ronnie turns the gun on Kev and takes a step back. "What the fuck are you?" He's shocked enough that he doesn't immediately react and one of his goons is the one to smack a bat into Kev's shoulder just for it to…also… ash.
Carson is coughing and crying as all of his plants scream in agony, keeping him from thinking straight as he slams himself against the door to his shed. "STOP! STOP PLEASE!" He gets his bearings enough to pick up the small chair by an even smaller table inside and throws it towards the window, sending glass and a chair out into the chaos as well. He pulls the rag off the sink, wets it quickly and presses it to his face before he tries to crawl /out/ the window, into the worst of the fire.
Jean arrives to find fire and chaos, like a scene from her worst nightmares. "There's…there's someone in there!" she exclaims, unable to miss the agony of Carson's mind and the pain that radiates off of him. She heads straight for the gates and the shed, bringing up her own shields. She rips the gun out of the hands of one of the goons with her mind as she passes, tossing it aside and out of the way. « Wait, » she speaks to the flustered mind. « We're coming for you. »
Fjorskar grunts as the window explodes in a rain of glass; of course this human is going to toss himself out into the fire. She approaches the least-burning section of the shed and digs her claws in, ripping open a huge hole in the fragile wall. She bark into the opening, trying to get Carson's attention. At least this way he's not hopping out into fire, if he notices the new escape route.
To Jean, the beast is a huge, black and gray shape in the smoke and fire; a wolfish-humanish shape with great, curling horns, gleaming claws, and pearly scales under black-gray fur. She's tearing open a hole in the shed and snarling into it, trying to get Carson's attention. It might not actually look like she's helping.
Fire. Fire is burny. Jay doesn't seem to take too much pause about the fire, though something about the look of the weapons spitting it makes him hesitate while he rushes toward the scene. Feathers set on end and eyes go wide as chaos erupts and people clash. A cold breeze doesn't brush past him, but it sure feels like one does as the world shifts and Jay stares at the odd weapons that the two ringleaders are sporting. Jay's mouth goes dry in an instant, but it's the screaming—first from Carson, then from Jean that shakes him out of it.
Poor Jean. She's getting a lot of fear at this point, between the fleeing men, the confused ones going after Wither, Carson and now Jay's bout of visceral fear.
The winged-man shakes himself out of it, though his consciousness continues to scream at him. He uses it to propel himself forward as quickly as he is able; wings unfurl and stretch as he runs, flapping, he picks up momentum to speed himself along, over obstacles, through the blooming smoke, making himself into a battering ram aimed for Chaz's back.
Julie is out the door, starting to run along even before directing, "Round up the neighborhood watch, if you can, kid!" She smirks to Elmo, slipping on a pair of yellow eyeshields from the welding shop that she's blacked the edges into a mask for, as they cover the distance to the gardens, seeing there's already flames involved, says, a bit angrily, "What's with these sonsabitches, every damn football season… Whatinna…" OK, flamethrowey things. She reaches into a pocket and whips out a set of her shop-made bolas of brake cable and valve guides. She whirls it above her head as lights whirl behind her eyes, and a VRRR sound, nearly subsonic, sounds around her. She releases the thing toward one of the guys-with-guns in a gyro-stabilized fling toward his upper arms, still charging on as she closes to… well, possibly bar-tray range. "
Wither flinched when he got hit withthe bat. Funny thing is those actually do make impact then just fall apart. Oh yeah, that smarts. He went to hit the asshole, Ronnie again and stood, one arm hanging at his side the other out ready to slap the next person not leaving immediately. "What am I? Your problem now, creep. You wanted to ruin things? Y'all succeeded. Get t' scootin or the bat ain't the the only thing going away the hard way." There was a flicker of a smile and now roused that entropy inside him hungered.
"Carson," Elmo breathes, horrified at the screams and the garden aflame. He spots Fjorskar tearing apart the shed and Jean headed there, and okay, he knows the monstrous wolf-creature is helping, at least. He summons electricity, making a big show out of it—*CRACK*! Lightning springs up around him, hissing and snapping. "GET THE FUCK OUTTA MY WAY!" he screams at the troublemakers, because he's going straight through them with electricity to keep them at bay. He's going to vault the fence.
Ronnie's gun gets yanked from him by.. no one? The air? While he is still stood shell shocked at the sight of his friend… melting to ash in front of him. The guy who took the bat to Kevin has taken the hell off. He runs off screaming, batless in fear, a couple of the others following him, taking the number of drunken bigots with rage issues down from nine to five. Ronnie, a beat too late turns after Jean to say "Hey! Where are.. Give it back!" He snarls, and doesn't have the good sense to not run into the fire. He yanks the bat from the nearest goon and takes off after Jean but not before Julie manages to get his arms wrapped and he trips and falls near the front of the garden. He gets a foot up to try and keep Wither away from him. "Yo, I can't get to steppin' if I'm trapped. Stay away from me!"
Chaz, on the other hand, far away from all the others and not anywhere to see his buddies melting, is having the time of his life setting fire to the back of the garden, going after that shed first, after the one place he knows real, tangible human life is. He's laughing, manically and then he's getting tackled into the ground with a flurry of feathers. "The hell?" He cries, the gun going flying as Chaz reaches back, trying to grab a fistful of feathers to yank. "Get off of me, you damn mutie."
Carson pulls in a sharp breath when Fjorskar, a beast that he's never seen before digs a hole in his shed and /barks/ at him? Carson's eye sight is blinded by tears and smoke but regardless, Fjorskar looks utterly terrifying. He promptly shoves himself out the window, tearing his arms up in the process but he doesn't even make a noise, not on that account. "I'M COMING. I'M COMING." He screams to plants that no one else can hear screaming, falling to the ground outside of his shed, having to roll quickly before he sets himself on fire. The bottoms of his pants start to light as Carson crawls through the dirt, not away from the fire but /into it/ as he blindly grabs for something. "C'mon. C'mon!" He cries until, yes, he /scalds/ his hand turning on the hose outside of his shed, water pumping out, hot and fast as the hose goes haywire.
The three guys who are not on the ground because of Jay or Julie are trying to figure out whether to run or fight and then LIGHTNING springs around this small guy and it's been made clear that they really have made a bad decision today. Doesn't stop one of them from running straight at Elmo with that bat.
Luckily, Jean has never been one to trust the evidence of her eyes over that of her mind. And while her eyes see a terrifying creature ripping at the cabin, her mind doesn't sense any danger from it. Not to her or to the young man trying to save the plants, at least. "I know you-" She coughs, inhaling smoke. Her shields can help some, but there's only so much she can protect herself from. « You and others are going to be hurt if you stay here. You have to stop. We have to leave. » She holds up a hand, trying to pull a shield around Carson as well.
Fjorskar growls her rapidly mounting frustration in a single word. "Useless!" If she gets outside this inferno and any of those to blame are still standing they're not going to last long. But first, the Idunnschild, who is pretty determined to die. To Jean she's an odd amalgam of minds; three, really, one very tiny and vestigal, one quite human, and one anything but. The later is the one in charge at the moment, and it's rage personified, though not directed at Carson, but the entire situation. Everything is annoying.
She dives after Carson, grabbing for his clothes so she can yank him back and drag him to a clear path out of the fire.
Chaz' fingers find feathers, sure, and being a real son of a bitch, he can absolutely tear a handful of them out while the world burns around him. Jay growls, biting back on a yelp of pain when feathers are yanked out of his skin. The plus side here is that they're down below plumes of smoke, so even as the flames swallow up more of the garden and creep toward the wooden fencing near them, at least the smoke inhalation is lesser a risk.
Jay crams his hand against Chaz' head to hold him down and /sits/ on top of the guy's back, straddled. Deploying pattented 'hold your little brother down and drool on his face' tactics by wrestling with Chaz' arms and pinning them under Jay's knees. "Shut the heck up, man." Squishing Chaz' cheek into the ground, both of his wings stretched out to either side.
The musician's head whips up when he hears Carson screaming. Crawling on the ground, trying to grab plants while the beastie tries to drag him back like a stray kitten. Jay's eyes widen. Holy shit. Yeah. He's seen pictures and knows about it, but…/damn, Professor!/ Electricity cracks and screams, Elmo running forward at breakneckish speed in that direction—you know, straight into the fire. Jay yells back. "El! Stay Back! She's gott'im!" The underlaying threat of 'don't make me run in after your narrow backside.'
Julie charges on, peeling off bar-trays, and throwing them like gyroscopic Frisbees. The guy headed toward Elmo gets a 'Have a nice trip' as she flings one at the back of her knees. She rather skids to a stop in her workshoes pretty close to any of the thugs standing her ground, surprise to see Kevin, and what he did, filters in. "Wither! We's gonna need a firebreak! Can you contain this? We got these guys!" Dizzy just puts up a pair of hands, then, taking a stance one wouldn't have expected her to take before certain training.
Wither looked to the large bird and threatened to grab the asshole in frnt of him. "DO NOT come back here or it won't be the bat, it'll be you, Pal." He looked to Jay, Jean, Julie, and 'Jorskar finally back to Julie as hte smoke was starting to stink his lungs. Firebeak. Well it'd feed his literal huner for destruction and not hurt anyone. Done! Shoving his sleeves up of his polyester shirt so arms were exposed he started low 5'ing all the plants t create that ashen deadland Julie requested. Fingers touched leaves and immediately they combust into a hail of ash as he went.
Really it's fortunate for everybody that Elmo immediately focuses on the guy coming at him with the bat. He whips towards him, long coat flaring, his teeth bared in a battle grin. Static electricity hisses to life in everybody's hair and clothes, biting fingertips, grounding through metal on clothes or in pockets. "Wrong decision!" He rears back and flings a battery at the dude. Lightning follows it as if on a tether. That is going to hurt.
The guy going for Elmo gets taken out by a /bar tray/ to the back of his knees, falling, the bat skittering before he can hit Elmo in the stomach with it and then a battery? Is being flung towards him and the guy goes down, twitching with the electricity and screaming in pain. This is enough to scare Tweedledee and Tweedledum off, running as fast as their legs can take them the hell away. They're left with three, all of them on the ground in one way or another. Either tied up, twitching or face down on the ground with a big bird on top of him. The threat as far as humans went? Gone. The fire on the other hand? It rages on.
"No! No!" Carson screams around coughs, his voice anguished as Fjorskar drags him back, Carson even tries to grab at the dirt, but he's certainly no match for Fjorskar and all at once, plants stop screaming, little by little and Carson's heart stops and he goes limp, making it easy for Fjorskar to drag the stupid human pup from the flames for a moment as Carson sobs. "You're killing them! You're killing them!" He cries, knowing that everyone knows that's exactly what's happening but to Carson, it hurts so much worse.
Jay's got Chaz immobilized, just cussing into the dirt, wiggling slightly in an effort to get away but Jay is an expert at this move. Almost like he had about 40 little brothers and sisters to use it on.
Carson's anguish is like a knife to Jean's temple, pounding against her shields. "We need to put. This fire. Out!" Without even thinking about it, she reaches out with telekinesis to rip the cover off a fire hydrant, creating a shield of force to guide the resulting explosion of water into the garden to drown the flames. And the screaming in her head. That would be great.
Sobbing human obtained, Fjorskar determinedly hauls him towards a collapsed section of the fence. She's not precisely gentle about it, but she keeps herself (and her fire-resistant scales) between Carson and the worst of the fire, aiming to use areas wetted down by Jean's use of the fire hydrant. She's going to stink of smoke and have burns. Hopefully something she's allowed to kill is out there so she can feel better about this mess.
Sure, electricity doesn't feel great zipping through every fiber of Jay's body, trying to ground out through the studs in his jeans and gromets in his shoes, but at least Elmo stops and doesn't give Jay any reason to get any closer to the licking flames. Bright eyes flashing around the entirety of the chaos, the giant bird-snake-dragon-beaver-whatever dragging a limp Carson away; Elmo stopped; Kev creating a burn line and— "Oh sh—!"
Jean tears a hydrant up and makes it rain like only famous rappers in the late 90's will truly appreciate. Jay instinctually ducks/starts as water washes in to put out flames and create its own path of chaos in the midst of it all. He raps Chaz one more time in the back of the head when he tries to push up. "Chill out. Everyone okay?"
|ROLL| Wither +rolls 1d20 for: 2
Julie is meanwhile casting her eyes about, seeming to mentally-shift gears as for once, someone else opens a fire hydrant. "OK, here!" she says, eyeing the hood that had brought the flamethrowing alien weapon in the first place. She drops a knee on an arm of his and a ribcage, covers his eyes, and for good measure, threateningly-tightens the bolas she'd entangled his legs with by no apparent means. "Hiya. We're kinda busy here, so maybe I'll let youse go if you tell me where you got that peachy little fire bazooka thing. Whaty'a know?"
Wither killed the crops and had a vague, glazed look in his eye like one of those kids in the drugs hopped up on pixie stix and pop rocks. The problem with Kevin's power was he really didn't have control over it so much as it him. He was limping, and his arms with some light burns on them from trying to 86' the vegitation before it spread "Now which one of y'all biggot manbabies wanna play patty cake with me?" Yeah he was angry. Still. This might escalate in unhappy ways fast. Ref? Ref help! He pointed and his finger settled on teh guy with the off-world torch. "You."
Elmo was only temporarily stopped; now he tears off after one of the fleeing guys. His blood is up and he's ready to hurt somebody. Once Elmo gets within shocking range, he shocks the hell out of the poor guy then hurls himself at the dude. While Elmo has no weight, he's still crackling with electricity. *POW!* He flings himself atop him and starts punching, rocking the stunned dude's face right to left with his fists, snarling in a mix of Yiddish and English. "You coulda killed him, ya son of a bitch! Ikh hob dikh in drerd! YOU COULDA KILLED HIM!"
Chaz goes limp, spreading his fingers out where they are trapped beneath Jay's knees. He gives up the fight entirely, knowing he's been beat and relaxes and with the gun too far away from him, he gives up the fight entirely. "Alright, alright. Let me go, man. I'll leave!" Chaz promises.
It's Ronnie that Julie advances on and starts to interrogate. He doesn't look like he intends to answer a damn thing until Wither advances on him. "Hey, Hey, Hey! I'll tell you, I'll tell you. We just found them!" Ronnie insists, struggling against his restraints, trying to roll the hell away. "In a junkyard we were roaming around in. They looked cool. We picked them up, they spit fire goop."
The guy that Elmo goes after just barely gets his fists up in time to protect his face but Elmo gives him a good pummeling regardless. "What loss would it be? He's just a filthy mutant and he's a nasty wetback!" The guy spits between punches as he tries to buck Elmo off of him.
Carson is out of the flames but he sits up on his knees, staring at the half ash, half ember remains of his garden, arms weeping blood, eyes weeping tears, left hand burnt, trembling but… he's not screaming.
Once the blaze is out, Jean re-caps the fire hydrant, letting out a slow breath. The fire may be out, but that doesn't mean that the mental fires are out. There's a lot of rage, a lot of pain, and a whole lot of chance that something may blaze up again. "Everybody stop," she says, reinforcing the words with a slight, mental push. "Retaliation isn't going to get us anywhere. Besides." She turns, walking toward the captured attackers and rubbing at her temple. "It's not really necessary."
Fjorskar unceremoniously drops Carson in the clear. One of these other people will sort him out. Probably. It's not her problem either way; what *is* her problem is that she's a singed and smoky and furious, and she's looking to get hold of a responsible party. And hey—there they are, running away. Or *someone* is running away, and that's enough to catch her attention.
She snarls, a deep sound that carries much further than it should, cutting under the fire and the water and everything else. It's the sort of sound felt in the gut, that the lizard brain says means bad things are happening and you should get away from them. She's off and running after the figure Elmo doesn't tackle, sprinting in ground-eating strides. She cuts him off once she's close enough, sending him down in a yelling heap while she skids to a stop. She stands up, full height, dragging him up by his shirt as she does and raising him up high. She echoes Elmo's sentiment, not in words but in the unending litany of her growling, which could put a muscle car's engine to shame. Someone is about to become an example.
Except then Jean's 'stop' hits, and Fjorskar turns to look towards her instead of doing…whatever she was about to do. Probably something with her teeth and the guy's throat.
"You leave an' you an' yer knuckle head friends don't come back 'round here causin' trouble. You hear?" Jay smacks Chaz along the back of his head again, and frowns at him. Disappointed. "Where'd you get that thing, anyway?"
Probably for the best that Ronnie gives them up because Jay's going to get a whole lot of nothing from Chaz. Glancing up when he sees the bright blue and gold streak of Elmo sizzle-pop-screaming after one of the fleeing men. "El, hold up!" And then Kevin advances on Ronnie and the dripping wet angel-imposter jumps up and bolts in the direction of Wither/Julie/Ronnie so on to intercept. "Kev-Kev-Kev."
Jay crosses paths with the other red-head as Jean walks toward the two captives. He is fully intent on half-hugging his arms around Wither's torso to lead him backward. Wings fully extended as visual shielding blocks between Wither and the idiot humans. "Be cool, man. Be cool."
Julie shifts her knee to the other stuggling shoulder of Ronnie. "Sure. Junkyard. Was it the one with the bent-up Imperial under the sign, or maybe somewhere else?" Well, maybe Jean'll get a flash of which one it *really* was. As it happens, she knows every junkyard in the Five Boroughs at least, and several more beyond. There's a long pause. "We got a problem here anyway, since the first thing you thought you'd do was come try and murder some nice people around here, and who's to say what anyone should think of that." She does hold up a hand toward Wither, though. "I mean, you know, could be easiest all around if you got turned into fertilizer, which one of the locals might really like to do, since you went and burned up the Victory garden and all. So. Whatya think here?"
Wither was, very calmly (if the tight smile said otherwise) just going to remove the guy's thumbs… hands… maybe his arms below the elmows… He went to struggle but- well it was Jay, and Jay was on the short, short list of people he didn't have betrayal grievances with. "Awww, Guthriw I was jes' gonna shake his hand and be friendly after he near killed that naice fella," And there was that anger as words went stacatto wnating Ronnie to hear behind the screen of feathers, "Raight before he he me with a bat!" He wince and had been so aching for a fight but he was not, would not, take it out on Jay. Tense words murmured to teh auburn birdman as he was coralled away.
Elmo twists like a weasel and shoves his knee into the guy's throat. He's shaking with fury, fists clenched white, static floating his hair. "Say that again," he growls between his teeth, leeeeaaaning his weight. "Say. It. Again."
Then he feels an impulse to stop hurting the guy. What? Why? There is every reason he should hurt the guy. He wants it so bad. And yet, something is just insisting he should stop. Elmo fights it, his mental state all tornadoes and lightning storms.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm leavin', hell." Chaz says and as soon as Jay gets off him, he rubs the back of his head, doesn't even think about picking up that gun, he just bolts from the scene of the crime. Fuck this, mutants are terrifying. He is sprinting away from here, screw Ronnie too.
"No, listen, I would make terrible fertilizer, I have a terrible diet." Ronnie insists, breathing a sigh of relief when the guy with the giant wings corrals Melts People With His Hands away from him. "No, not that one. The one on 5th! The one on 5th! Let me go, okay? Let me go. I'll be a model citizen. I'll donate to charity. Just don't turn me into fertilizer, please?" He smells so much like fear to those with animal senses in the area.
The guy Elmo is pummeling gets a knee to his throat and chokes. He can't really repeat anything with Elmo there. Carson, still mostly shell shocked, manages to croak out to Elmo. "Stop. Please. He's not worth it."
Fjorskar's prey is dangling in the air and sobbing something drunk and mostly unintelligible about wanting to go home and never doing anything wrong again in his life. Also, he may have wet himself. Okay, he definitely wet himself.
"How is hurting them going to convince them that they shouldn't have done what they did?" Jean grimaces, shaking her head as more of the attackers run off. "Of course, that their first instinct when they found those things was to go destroy something doesn't speak well to their state of mind anyhow." The mental pressure eases in short order, leaving the encouragement to words as she steps over to kneel by Carson. "Are you okay?" she asks, reaching a hand for his shoulder. "Physically, I mean. I know…" And there's a gentle well of sympathy there, sharing the pain of the loss.
Fjorskar can barely contain her reaction as Carson and then Jean insist on all this 'stopping' business. She shakes her captive for emphasis. "Not, to convince—they. Will not stop." The English is forced out through a throat not meant for it, rendering it only just comprehensible. The intent can be felt though; the surface of her mind is a mass of furious incredulity. She points at the ruins of the garden. "This will happen. Again, and again. When. Will it be worth it." She shakes the man again. "*When*, will it, warrant, your rage."
There are some feathers suffering curled, melted edges from the licking nearby flames, and of course the patch missing where the guy grabbed and yanked a fistful of them out. Jay doesn't seem to be regenerating those, but the way he goes at Kevin with zero hesitation says that he's otherwise unafraid of the man with the power to turn someone to ash in an instant. Bright eyes meet like as Jay dodges his head into view of Kevin's line of sight. Jean trying to keep the lid on this pressure cooker situation and Jay trying to do the same in his own way, his squishy, stupid sponge of a brain soaks up Jean's influence eagerly and he calms his own sharp fear and trauma from a similar event, making sure it melts away like snow under a heat lamp.
Jay's expression softens and his feathers shiver slightly when Kevin whispers to him. He answers back, low and solemn. "Ah know. But…don't be what they think y'are, Kev. Don't /make them raght/. Don't let them /win/ that way. It's too easy." Pacifist Jay pacifists hard at Kevin. Glancing backward, keenly aware that somewhere behind him that Elmo is losing his goddamn mind, Fjorskar is arguing in broken English and Carson is sobbing, the red-head's feathers stretch and shiver, trying to keep the man in front of him from joining the ranks of crazy.
Giving Kevin an up and down glance, a little alarm running through him, Jay asks. "What? What is it?" His hands still against Kevin's chest, looking for damage from the fire or the bat or something.
Julie just hrms. Says to Ronnie. "Well, that's a real quick turnaround from youse shouting about how people are scum and trying to burn them down in their own houses just cause you found a piece of hardware you thought let you do it. I kinda heard that. When you said and did that. While youse was trying to murder someone for being different. Burn down even anyone that lives on the same block. You and your friends. You some kinda nutcase you think that's a good Saturday night? Maybe you oughtta end up tomato food." She seethes. Glances back to Jean. "Or maybe what you're gonna do is walk through this neighborhood and you're gonna try to look at better citizens than you you just tried to burn their block, and *maybe* there won't be a green-and-white car or three full of cops at the end of the block when you get there. Capiche?" No, she doesn't have any intention of killing the guy, but he did just do just that to Carson. Maybe there ought to be cops.
Wither was walked back…baaack… and between Jay and Jean stopped. Jaw clenched and his eyes, angry, and damp from the sting of smoke and feelings releted his war to teh screen that was Jay. "Jay, they already won." He took a deep breath and winced as his burned fingers tried to curl into a ball. He held them up where skin was a bit singed from playing tag with things on fire. "That… that fella in the buildin. He a'ight?" Yeah focus on literally anything else other than how first and second degree burns pretty much just sucked.
The mental suggestion fades off, leaving Elmo to find he's lost his taste for further brutalizing the poor bastard. He curses in a long string of virulent Yiddish and stands up, breathing hard, shaking harder and giving the distinct impression he's going to fall apart any second now. "I ever see you in my neighborhood again," he promises the guy, voice quivering, "you are gonna be sorry."
The guy that Fjorskar had was not doing anything to combat being violently shook, just crying. He's put up literally no fight and probably won't be a problem if let go. He's just going to run away at this point. If nothing else, they've taught this band of merry assholes that mutants are not someone to mess with.
The guy that Julie is on, nods vehemently. "Yes, yes. I'm going to walk and hell, if there's a car, I'll get in it, I'll admit to everything." Ronnie promises. "Just let me go, let me go and you'll never see me around here ever again."
The guy that Elmo finally gets off, whimpers and scrambles to his feet and takes off, at a limp but takes off none the less, pulling in deep gulps of breath as he does.
Carson looks up at Jean, face coated with ash that tears have tracked through. His arms are wet with blood and his hand is burnt but that doesn't seem to be bothering him as he looks past Jean to what remains of his garden. "I.. I.." He stammers and shakes his head. No, he's not okay, in any definition of the word. "Hospital.. probably."
"It's always enough for rage," Jean replies to Fjoskar. "But rarely enough for vengeance. Hospital sounds like a good plan," she agrees with Carson, offering over a small smile. "I'm Jean. And I'll be happy to help you get there if you'll let me." When Carson isn't looking, though, the others get a quick waning look from her. Stay in line. Don't be vigilantes.
Ultimately, it's not her territory, so Fjorskar snarls her displeasure at Jean but doesn't gainsay her either. She drops the man she's holding, curbing the desire to throw him. It's still a few feet to the ground; hopefully he sprains something, maybe picks up some more bruises. "You live at their sufferance," she barks at the man. She sinks down, resting on her heels for a time and surveying the wreckage. With a grunt, she ambles off, no doubt seeking one of the tunnel entrances which will safely take her to anywhere but here.
Icarus' hand leaves Wither's chest, hovering just above it as if he expected the guy to surge forward again in a pique of 'fuck it' and try to finish the guy off. The declaration that they've lost results in a wince from Jay and a sympathetic, but funny little quirk of his lips upward. "Kev. This ain't losin'." His eyebrows arch, trying to expand that view a little bit at a time, but not about to get into an exestential deep dive with the man. He glances down at Kevin's fingers and purses his lips. Begrudgendly, he mutters. "You should go see Foley. Ah know a guy who could help, but he gotta touch ya an' Ah don't know how that'd go."
Blowing out a bluster of a breath, Jay's wings slowly fold up behind him again, turning in Carson and Jean's direction. A reverberation of empathetic ache comes off the man in a big squishy bubble. Jean's look of warning is met head on with a vigilent, if slight nod of agreement and a resounding mental affirmative. He's not a vengeful soul. "That's Sonny. Looks like Miss Jeanie's got'im. She'll make sure he's good, if you wanna go with 'em." His eyes tick over to Fjorskar as she snarls, barks and then slinks back into the dark. Wings fluff up, but he makes no move to follow.
Instead, Icarus' attention turns all the way down the way to Elmo while he tries not to shake apart. Quietly, he walks in that direction.
Julie quickly and lightly slapslapslaps Ronnie in the cheek, still keeping a hand over his eyes, for now. Her Italian-American accent may just remind some that Little Italy used to be somewhat bigger just in this part of town. She looks around until she spots Elmo, wherever he's gotten to. "Hey, Sparks, how bout you grab up that hardware, someone could get hurt with those things." She does nudge the fellow up. "Anyone wanna call John Law?"
Wither just took a deep breath relenting the point to Jay. Maybe. At the notion of letting Foley lay hands on him his nose wrinkled. "I think ya know the answer t' that." He was about to say something to Julie before the look went flat leaving his mouth gaping like a fish. How do you… but they… yeah no. He turned though to teh giant bird and asked, "Fordscar?" He was tryin. "Jay? … thanks." Looking back to the bird-creature whom… he apparently knew?! he offered, "Come on, if there's cops neither of us gonna waynt t'stick around f' that. Can ya help me get t'that place I found?" Yeah no JOhnny Law for this kid. He was full up.
Don't be vigilantes? Hah. Too late. Elmo's not going anywhere, though; he stands shaking with a hand over his face. His mental state is…bad, it's bad. Bitter hatred and anger and self-loathing and terror, all brought boiling to the surface while he fights futilely to tamp them back down again. When Julie calls to him, he looks up, face quivering with the effort of trying not to scream. "Y-yeah." Then he realizes Jay is coming towards him. "Jayl," he says, hoarse, pleading.
Carson hasn't moved from where he's at on the ground. "Just… I'll go, Jean, you said? I will go, I just.. need a moment? I believe that's what they say, correct? I thank you, greatly for coming to help, for putting out the fires." He slides his hand into the ground, uncharred and a flower, a rose blooms for her. "Thank you, again, all of you." His voice is distant, though, lifeless.
Ronnie gets up and limps away, glad to not, in fact be tomato food, if cops do happen to show up, he, as promised, is more than happy to be arrested if it gets him away from mutants. As soon as the other guy is released, he is also gone, all of them run away, not interested in sticking around here any longer.
One ear flicks back at the sound of Kevin's voice, and Fjorskar puases. She huffs out a breath and half turns, jerks her head towards a dim alley between two tall, brick buildings. She waits for Kevin to join her, looking like she's had a roll in a campfire. She studies Elmo for a moment, and determines him to be alright; or at least, no limbs are falling off, and he's not bleeding copiously. The rest usually sorts itself out one way or another.
Jay exchanged a knowing look of complete understanding with Kevin when he gave him /that look/ over Foley. "Yeah. Ah know. Don't be a stranger, Kev. Be safe." Glancing between the outlaw mutant and … uh, the professor's 'friend', there was a small nod to Fjorskar's direction while Jay took himself slowly in Elmo's direction. "Why don't you call 'em, Miz Diz? El an' me will clean up." Though Jay doesn't seem convinced that anyone is going to be rushing down from the precinct to the M.T.
Veering the couple of steps to grab the weapon that Chaz had, Jay's fingers hold on to it very loosely while he finishes walking to Elmo. Slinging a strong arm around the short man's shoulders and yanking him in to a tight hug. "It's okay, El." Trying to ground the sizzling and shorting guy out.
Wither wasn't a bad guy. He was really a decent fella with a bad hand and some pretty judtified anger issues. That said he was glad pals stepped in to keep him from doing things he couldn't turn back from. Blistered a bit and burnt he gingerly jogged over to the creature and squint his eyes murmuring "Thanks." a nd with that headed beyond and below with the bird-mother.
Elmo grabs Jay and presses his face into his chest and really does scream. Any psionic looking at him would see solar flares going off in massive arcs. He calms down rapidly after that, the tight pressure Jay is giving him relieving him of the need to melt the fuck down. He breathes slower, heartbeat calming. "Okay…okay…I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's…let's help Carseleh. I'll get that stuff."
Julie does, however, herd Ronnie out into the streets. This isn't the first time Mutant Town's had what she shames the guy about 'Amateur Krystallnacht.' There's plenty of local residents out on the streets looking nearly as murderous and with better reason than this fellow did. Diz does take the measure of seeing if he was unthinking enough to bring a wallet. "Someone here knows where you live, believe me, buddy." She tears a part off the end of his driver's licence or whatnot. "The rest is just for proof." Cops may not want to come into Mutant Town either, but there's red lights on roofs nearby, and by the time Ronnie's walked away, Dizzy's faded back into the crowd.
Fjorskar narrows her eyes at Jay, wary, relaxes when Kevin joins her. She sniffs at him, checking for excessive damage, the kind that'll make it too hard for him to move. Finding none, she resumes her steady pace to the entrance to the underground, slower now so that Kevin can easily keep up.