X-Men: Shark Bones

A few of the cops had been at the back entrance trying to get the few people inside out to a safer place. They'd taken out two of the people before the giant bunch of explosions appeared.

The woman with the green hair yelled "Shut up!" at Austin before getting behind him to use as a shield, trapping his neck in the hinge of her elbow.

One of them rushed inside when the woman yelled something about frying a man's brains. He was just about to start trying to talk her down when John appeared out of nowhere and shot her. She moved to the side when she saw the gun, or tried to, John and his gun were too fast, resulting on it grazing the side of her skull and blowing off a big part of her ear. The woman seemed more troubled by the fact that she'd gotten shot at than the pain itself, and placed one of her loud, bright, not all that forceful explosions between her and Kozak. She kept one of her hands near Austin's face at all times.

"Anyone shoots again, the next one happens inside his skull." She said Moving away from both the cop and John.

"That assumes that I care." John said as he stared the girl down. "Sorry kid." He said to Austin, as he brought his weapon to the ready, and centered the sights on the young mans center mass.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Everyone just chill!" Austin said. "I'm sure there's a way that we can talk this out peacefully?"

As he spoke, he focused on his skin, hardening several small patches of it to incredible durity. Suddenly, the patches extended and formed into black lances that speared toward the woman's stomach, chest, and limbs.

edited 4th Sep '12 7:03:24 PM by Wysp

"Gah! What the hell you—" She said, and then a small explosion appeared near them before she fell backwards, bleeding from where Austin's attack had penetrated. The cop started to say something to John, but couldn't as the woman started creating explosions through to everywhere around her. They pushed Austin, John, and even the cop further away from her, and dazed them all with loud noises and bright lights causing temporary vision and hearing loss.

She ran out in the confusion (or limped hastily, as was only possible). If they'd been able to hear, the three of them (along with two other people hiding in the restaurant) would have heard her yelling "Keira!" and disappearing in mid air with the purple-haired girl, who had reappeared in the middle of the street sometime back, and gone unnoticed.

The cop was the first to stop seeing bright white spots and compulsively blinking, but not the first to recover his hearing. As such, when he realized the girl had disappeared, he turned to John and yelled "YOU'RE UNDER ARREST!".

edited 4th Sep '12 7:25:56 PM by Faramir

People were screaming, everyone was screaming. Tari remained plastered against the front wall of Booker's, eyes wide. What just happened?

Green-haired-and-ugly ran from the restaurant, bleeding and shouting, and a purple-haired girl blinked into view in the middle of the street, the two of them vanishing into midair. There were cops inside, thankfully, so maybe no one would notice if she just... stayed here. Her shins were sore—she rubbed them. Running like that was hard on her legs, especially when she was low on calcium.

"Ah, Tari," she mumbled to herself, "And to think mom and dad thought you'd be safe here."

Her body was protesting, crying out for nutrients she'd failed to give it, and Tari knew she had to get one of her calcium milkshakes in her as soon as she could. The last thing she needed was a trip to the hospital with bone troubles. The woman pushed herself to her feet, wincing as her tibia and fibula ground against each other. Yeah. Ca2, now.

All of her food for the day was in her backpack in the back room of the drop-in center. Being careful to stay out of the way of all the personnel streaming into the area, Tari wove her way back inside the center, and to the back room. Medics and cops were there, giving first aid and asking questions. Everything looked like it had been rifled through, and the contents of her backpack were still safely stowed where they belonged. She ripped the bag open.

Thankfully, she'd pre-mixed two milkshakes earlier that morning and sealed them in recycled water bottles. She scooped one up and twisted the cap off, gulping the thick, grainy milkshake—laced with enough calcium and other nutrients the human body needed—to make a normal person ill.

edited 4th Sep '12 8:17:04 PM by Windee

One of the cops, who had a makeshift "cast" over three of his fingers in his right hand, saw Tari arrive and decided to walk over to her.

"Um, hello, I was wondering if I could ask you some questions."

"Yeah, yeah," Tari said, gulping down the rest of her shake as fast as she could. "I don't know how helpful I can be—everything was really confusing—but I can tell you what I know."

She offered a hand. "Tari Walser. I'm a volunteer here at the center, and I go to school at the U of C."

"Oh, thank you...Um, I was wondering if you could fill this out..." He said, getting out a clipboard "I'd do it for you and take your answers... but—well" He moved his head toward his wounded right hand.

"Yeah, sure, sure!" Tari reached for the clipboard, digging into the small pocket of her backpack for a pen and scratching her name and age in the indicated parts of the form.

Putting words to what she'd seen that morning was a little more difficult. The car crash, which she'd ignored. A crazy man appearing outside, breaking the windows of the center, and probably scaring poor Fiona into cardiac arrest. A woman with horrendous green hair, throwing explosions of light and sound around like super-sized firecrackers, charging into Booker's BBQ and taking a man hostage. Then, someone had fired a shot and the woman had run out, disappearing with a purple-haired girl.

"Oh!" she said, catching the officer's attention, "What happened to the man who was taken hostage? Is he okay? Who shot the green-haired woman?"

"I uh, I didn't see him get out, I was here when that happened, no one's told me anything, sorry" He said, obviously fighting the urge to scratch his right fingers.

Nico sighed as the chaos broke up. He had been pretty useless there. Regardless, he didn't feel like the endless stream of questioning that came after being that close to some kind of mutant terrorist, and just flew away. Once he had reached it, he landed on the roof and looked out over whatever was below.

John's hearing came back seconds after the explosion, and in the relative calm afterwards, he was able to spot the blood trail that no doubt belonged to the green-haired woman.

Putting his weapon back in its holster, he dusted himself off for what seemed like the tenth time that morning. Ironically, the police officer from the prior standoff was also up, and he seemed to be trying to arrest John.

Ignoring the mans words, he shrugged his shoulders before moving."Go fuck yourself" John replied as he walked out the door.

Todd blinked. Were the cops not trying to arrest him? Now that’s a relief… Feeling a little better, he got to his feet and surveyed the area. It seemed like most of the mess had been handled. Big Guy was being carried off by the cops, and it looked like the others were hightailing it out of there. A job well done.

He had a feeling that this might become “a thing”. As long as this gang was around, there’d be more incidents like this one. Todd would have to keep an eye out.

“YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!” Todd heard the shout coming from somewhere nearby. Maybe sooner than I thought… He looked toward the direction of the shouting and spied a cop shakily pointing at some guy who was strolling around like he owned the place. Todd looked around for a moment; he didn’t remember seeing this guy with the gang. Was someone taking advantage of the chaos for their own ends? He wondered if he had enough energy for another fight in him. After flexing his arms, he decided that, yes, he had enough energy.

As he made his way toward the cop, he suddenly felt unsure about himself. How far would he be allowed to go? Just because the cops didn’t nail him for taking down “Gigantor” didn’t mean he could just take the law into his own hands. When he got within earshot of the cop, he took a more diplomatic approach. “Need help?”

The cop looked at John confused for a moment.

"WHAT?! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" He yelled, the hearing loss making him think that he was speaking with a reasonable volume. He tried to give a warning shot as John started to walk away, only to realize he'd the safety was on after the gun failed to fire. When Todd approached him, he looked at him with an odd mix of curiosity and gratefulness.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" He asked, his ears still hurt from the explosions. Then he realized John hadn't handed himself over to any other policemen.

"HE'S GETTING AWAY?!" He more asked than said as he tried to run after him, though his inner ear was still a bit wonky leading him to loose his balance for a moment and almost hit the wall.

John had more than enough time to get to his bike and leave.

edited 5th Sep '12 9:59:05 AM by Faramir

Austin discreetly retracted the spikes while no one was looking, than checked to see if the area was safe. It seemed so, and he emerged from cover, trying to wipe some of the woman's blood off of himself.

"What was that?" Tari asked, looking up as she handed the clipboard back to the police officer who'd questioned her. She reached into her backpack and grabbed another milkshake, cracking the lid and peering into the front room. "Did you hear that?"

"Yes, apparently there's an attempted arrest in progress." The police officer said, leaning to the side to get a better look at the man who— if memory served— had attempted to shoot one of the least dangerous of the gang members, possibly endangering innocents in the process. As well as possibly the one responsible for the other gunshot that policemen weren't responsible for, that had been heard in the restaurant. Unless Jenkins had actually managed to shoot his gun this time, which would be a small miracle in itself.

"Don't worry, one of the few dozen security cameras around here has to have gotten a shot of his face, or at least his license plate" He said, when he saw the man walking to a motorcycle. "We'll get him soon."

edited 12th Sep '12 6:24:38 PM by Faramir

Leaving the dazed and confused cop in the restaraunt, John hopped on his bike and rode away. He drove for what seemed like an hour until he was well outside the city limitys, before pulling into a truck stop and looking for a payhone.

Angrily jabbing at the keys, he waited for the call to go through before speaking. "Rasputin", he said into the handset before hearing three faint tones; a female voice picked up. "You've been in this country less than a week, and you're already making friends. As if a multi-car pileup and a fire aren't enough, you deem it necessary to shoot it out in the middle of the day?"

Slightly irritated, John took a breath and tapped the reciver against his head before he spoke. "If I had decided to shoot it out, there would of been enough bodies to keep the mourge full. You hired me to do a job, now let me do it."

"As you wish, but continue to operate like this, and you'll be on your own. I'm sure you're well aware of how we deal with liabilities. Enjoy your time in Canada Mr. Rasputin."

"You pretentious..." was all he got out before she hung up on him. Slamming the receiver down on the base, he left the phone booth and made his way into the truck stop.

Everything seemed to have calmed down. All the gang members had left with the aid of the teleporting girl, excepting of course the enormous titan of a man that the police had in custody. Though everyone involved was mostly worried about getting him to survive the massive concussion and bleeding than about questioning him just yet.

Ambulances had left with the people they needed to take to the hospital, and one of the cops with a broken hand had grabbed a megaphone once he noticed Nico in the roof.

"Hey you! On the roof! Could you get down here to answer some questions, please?"

Nico sighed. Again, a human firefly is far from inconspicuous. He flew down off the roof and towards the cop, eventually landing in front of him.

"Yes, officer?"

"Thank you for your help" He said as Nico flew down. "We have this form we need witnesses to fill out" He said, handing him a clipboard.

"If you can't answer a question just skip it, but try to get in as much info as you can alright? And uh, when you're finished just hand it to any cop over in that area, hey" He said in a friendly tone before heading back to where he'd gestured to find another clipboard to give to witnesses.

edited 9th Sep '12 8:48:38 AM by Faramir

Nico took it politely and grudgingly filled it out. He then wandered over to where had been indicated and gave it to someone.

Riding from the truck stop back the city, John rook a moment to center himself before he made his downtown, searching the local hotels on his phone, he did a quick recon of the area before securing his bike and checking in.

Making his way to his room, he locked the door behind him and began to set up his gear; various electronics, ammunition, maps and all manner of tools of the trade were neatly arranged on his bed. Tossing his jacket over a chair and stripping down to a t shirt, be picked up his pistol and began cleaning it; biding time until his employer called.

"Thank you for your help" One of the cops said automatically without even really looking at Nico.

John's gun-cleaning was interrupted by the voice of a woman. "Hello John. Or do you prefer 'Rasputin'?"

She was thin, tall, and elegant. She had long dark red hair and deep brown eyes. Her skin was pale, her lips were a deep dark red, and she was standing in a formerly empty part of the room as though she owned it.

"I'd prefer that you at lest knock before entering, but by all means, pull up a chair if you're going to chastise me." John said with out looking up.

Keeping his head down on his work, he used his peripheral vision to scan the room for any other uninvited visitors, satisfied with his quick look around, he lifted his head and made eye contact with the woman.

"There are only a few kinds of people that can get into a room like this, and I'm not exactly a fan of any of them." he said as he quickly reassembled his pistol and sat on the edge of his bed with his hands behind his back. "So tell me, who might you be?" John said as he discretely reached for a small blade and hid it in his hand. "Or should I start calling you sexy scarlet stranger?"