Ice Tag

Participants:

audrey_icon.gif bao-wei2_icon.gif

Featuring:

griffin_icon.gif

Scene Title Ice Tag
Synopsis Bao leads the government on a merry chase through Brooklyn that culminates into a stand off with Agent Hanson who will wait for another day to play Whack-A-Bao when he resurfaces.
Date June 30, 2011

Brooklyn


The humidity is the killer. It makes clothing stick to skin, smooth hair pop out and frizz like it's owner stuck their finger in a wall socket and if you breath in enough, you'll get your reccomended daily intake of water.

in this less prestigious area code in Brooklyn that never was rebuilt quite like Flat Bush or the other more upscale - if any of this city can be called upscale anymore unless it's the upper west end - and still has people squished in like sardines. Kids still playing in the street in the afternoon sun. Someone's popped a fire hydrant and water spews forth with force to knock down the brave souls who step into it's way, trying to see who can last the longest.

It'll be soon enough that the firemen will come and close it off, try to hunt down who did it, but in this community, the odds of such a thing happening, of someone tattling, will be little.

A baby wails, it's piercing cry heard from on high, a window open on the fourth floor to let in some air. Condensation drips from window air conditioners that chug away, leaving puddles on sidewalks. It could be hotter, it feels hotter, thanks to the clear sky's and the humidity. The children scream and laugh, the matron mama's and grandmama's sit in their lawn chairs and watch, keeping an eye on the kids as they play, road sprinkled with parked cars.

Sitting in the sunlight is a feat often reserved for tanners or lizards; Bao-Wei is closer to one than the other, and finding himself wandering up onto the street was as shocking to him as it was to the stray dog he came nose-to-nose with. It didn't bark- it just ran. Still, he bolted his way up the side of the nearer apartment building, shielded by the alleyway and the distraction made by the open hydrant down the block. Nobody is looking for him at the moment, either, which is sheer luck. That does not stop him from plunking his way onto the fire escape, however.

Which is where he takes a quick stock of the waking, bright, sunny world of a Brooklyn summer, perching on the fire escape to peer out of the alleyway, and down the block. It proves difficult, so in a fit of nostalgia, Cong lifts himself up along the side of the building to peer properly around the edge of it to see where the hydrant has amassed a couple gaggles worth of children and teenagers looking for a break.

It is not often that Griffin Mihangle makes his way to the city, these days. Having a wanted face with a prominent, easy-to-distinguish nose makes for plenty of paranoia and glancing over his shoulder. He's been out in the countryside north of New York these days, caring for his pregnant wife; while the law may never recognize his and Nadira's relationship, they recognize it, and the simple white-gold ring resting on his left hand is physical proof of his commitment.

His beard has been trimmed for his trip, and only a five-o-clock shadow shows on the rest of his face. The man wears a pair of breezy, comfortable pants, sandals, and a loose t-shirt, of the band variety. He was never fond of Nirvana himself, despite the band's faded logo blazed across his chest in yellow. Give him an orchestra any day, and that musical mind of his would be happy.

The man is seated on a corner, his dark hair falling over his face as he expertly strums the guitar that Nadira gave him for Christmas; the guitar case lays open at his feet, with a collection of change scattered over the red velvet lining. The cash, he usually picks up as soon as it is laid down, to avoid those who may have sticky fingers. Sunglasses rest over his eyes as he plays a lazy tune, green eyes watching the children play from behind dark lenses.

No one expected the evolved individual to have gone up. All reports had placed him coming from below. In fact, that's where he had come from. So why would anyone actually be looking up once they had lost track of Bao-Wei. So it's likely a surprise when from out of an alley on the other side of the building one down from Bai, black runners on her feet, DHS emblazoned across the bullet proof vest that she's got on over her blue button down with it's sleeves rolled up to just under her elbows. Her gun is out, pointed down, other hand working a radio attached to the vest as she catches sight of the children.

And the suspect perched on high.

"Found it" It. She rattles off the cross streets, looking at the gaggle of kids in the water further away from the hydrant where the force isn't so strong. "We got about twenty civilians, half of that kids" Griffin can see her, see her down the block and see that her gaze isn't on him but on something in the alley.

"Need backup" Somewhere, the baby still wails it's displeasure from the heat and the noise of the kids and spewing water, covering up the agent who's ducked out of sight to everyone a moment later. To what purpose, who knows.

In the space between them, Audrey can see the spiny tail behind it give a wag against the building it clings to, cracking off a sheaf of brick-colored dust. He doesn't see her- he is too busy sightseeing. Maybe it is a lapse in what judgment he still has, or maybe even just one of those days where everything will go wrong. Bao-Wei attaches himself firmly to the wall, eye dimming in the shadow of the building, where the sun comes cutting across.

After a moment or two more, the nostalgia seems to pass him by; the carapace plastered to the wall dislodges itself quite abruptly, and the sound of him dropping to the street sounds vaguely like a small car crashing into something. Several children look around for a sign of something, and seeing nothing return promptly to playing in the water. Bao-Wei has something that he needs to do, and it does not involve stopping to swing his ankles on someone's apartment wall.

It's pretty easy to recognize danger when it is loudly proclaimed on the front of said danger's clothing. Griffin notices Audrey rather quickly, his eyes trained to spot such logos as the one she bears. Still, he doesn't stop his contented strumming on the guitar. Not yet, at least; he never did like to stop playing a song in the middle. Playing to the end is best.

However, behind those sunglasses, he's watching, looking around. Noticing things, mostly. Like the fact that his good friend the Ice Monster Thing is hanging out up on a fire escape. And making crashing noises. Most won't notice, but he does. Paranoia does wonders for perception, especially in a situation such as Griffin's.

The casual strumming slowly fades to a halt; the next round of cash is collected, the man watching the scene unfold in silence as he packs his guitar away.

Back-up is coming, she knows this much. Negation gas likely on it's way not to mention other methods of control. Flame throwers? Would It dislike flame? Who the hell knows other than the evolved himself, but audrey feels the thumb to the ground that he makes with his excess weight, can hear it too and she darts out from her hidey hole behind some stairs up to an apartment and starts to circle around as fast as she can go.

"DHS! clear the street now people" The fewer out here, the less the chance for collateral damage and casualties. Griffin, for now, is counted amoung the civilians.

Without facial muscles, the wince that comes from Bao-Wei can't be seen. He does. This is exactly what he wanted to avoid. She'd been quite persistently tailing him since he stuck his nose up not long ago. Simply the wrong place- and now, she continues her doggedness. They probably won't know why she is telling them to clear off, and if they refrain from listening, they might start; he has nowhere to go but out. Gritting his jaw closed, Bao-Wei hefts himself up onto his feet, taking a bear-like moment to scope the street before lumbering out of the alleyway.

The path he leaves behind is a mix of frost and fog; sunlight bounces off of his ridged hide and glitters brightly, pinpointing him for civilians the moment that the rays can find him. It is a worthy risk, he has deduced- to show himself in order to get away.

True to form, people start actually running when he does show himself. Crazy DHS lady wasn't being crazy after all.

It's a fortunate thing that he was packing away his guitar as Audrey made her shouts. A particularly nonplussed look is cast toward Audrey and her DHS armor from behind the sunglasses, as Griffin quietly shuffles his way along with the crowd. He's moving slowly on purpose, eyes focused on the alley that the Ice Monster made his crash landing in.

He'll wait and see if he'll be needed by the Monster; he isn't too scared for the man's safety. After all, he does just so happen to be an Ice Monster. Being chased by DHS, no less. They would have a field day with him. His decision made, Griffin wanders off. He'll be calling someone when he gets to a safe place…where he will like watch all of this unfold. For now.

Griffin's gone, out of sight, people scattering like cockroaches with the light turned on when It appeared and Audrey wasn't just some nut job sweaty woman in an FBI flak vest. Momma's abandon their chairs to scoop up their kids, the older ones bolting, doors thrown open to welcome their families and other strangers off the street as even in the distance, sirens can be heard. Audrey's still moving, staying out of the water that flows with force out of the hydrant, having seen another agent and some cops learn that lesson that hard way.

"Remain where you are sir" She hopes it's a sir, and doubts that it will stay where it is given that she and others have chased it over nearly half this borough when they were called out. She was in the area checking on something.

"Please remain where you are until we can contain you. Please make this easier on yourself" Bullets seem to do shit again it, frankly.

Unlike everyone else, water is his savior and many times, his way out. Midway into his path towards it, he pivots on one heel to narrow his brow at her. It does not listen- unsurprisingly. Where Audrey avoids the open hydrant, Bao-Wei ambles right into the spray. It hits him with a splintering crack of noise, freezing across his surface and gushing over his back. The ice is lopsided before he turns into the spray, and he visibly hobbles onto one trunk-shaped foot before righting himself again.

Sticking his face into the spray, it envelops him without hesitation; it goes from humanoid to monstrous in short time.

"You don't want that." The deep, gravelly voice rumbles out above the din that is the hydrant's constant rush of water and air into a wall of ice. Slowly but surely, it begins to freeze closer and closer to the pipe. "Leave me alone." A fruitless demand, most likely- he knows that much. But for the sake of posterity, and the sake of bystanders, he states it. His purpose is not malevolent here.

"You know I can't leave you alone" Shit, here it goes again. "Stop that, or I'll be forced to shoot you sir" She warns, people peering from behind their curtains at the showdown happening outside. Sirens are closer, shouts coming from down the alley, bouncing off walls making them sound closer than they really are.

"Go on, then. But you know the rules of physics, yes? Neither of us desires collateral damage. Especially not because of a flat, hard surface." This thing she has been chasing may not act like a spring chicken, but it thinks like one; this is not the first time it has offered Agent Hanson a discourse. The water finally freezes in the hydrant, and the spray comes to a grinding halt, the air fogging with the mixture of humidity and cold.

The golem she has under her aim expands its chest as if breathing, a plume of this cold fog coming out as the torso clicks and crunches in on itself. Cong lifts a long limb, gesturing with a ragged hand towards the sirens in the near distance. The movement seems ached, almost arthritic.

"They can't do anything. You know it. I know it." The hydrant gives a metallic thrum, which grows into a rattle, which grows into a sudden burst. The metal stopper flings up into the air from the built pressure, angling head over heels and hitting a parked car down the street. Bao-Wei's head angles lower as he turns his golden eye to watch its course in the air.

"They can bring a shitload of napalm, that's what they can do. You've been leading us on a merry chase. Wasting a lot of tax payer's money and we could be out bringing in people who kill people instead of you, bursting pipes and everything else that you've been doing. So why don't you give up playing hide and seek in the pipes there, and actually come in"

No, odds are she won't be firing her bullet. She can't risk a ricochet off to who knows what home and possibly hit a kid.

"So why don't you?" Cong was never a fan of bureaucracy. This is one reason why. "Go find the murderers, the rapists, and the real sociopaths." He lets out a noise not unlike a snort, regarding her with a dose of further disdain. "Do something useful. I've done nothing but mind my own. It is not like a busted pipe is your biggest problem."

To accentuate these words, he walks into the stream he has frozen into the ground. His forelimb wraps onto it, heaving it closer, where it all but slides into where a liver ought to be. Of course, he does get bigger, if only width-wise. The hydrant is spraying from the ground now, burbling weakly past the ice to where Bao-Wei walks. Absorption is all downhill from here- he even looks past one pauldron-shaped shoulder to watch her again, meandering his way to the corner proper.

"I've been a non-issue for half of a year. I think I should remain such."

"Because you're a public menaces and just as dangerous, if not overtly so" Audrey snaps back. She'd rather be catching murder's, rapists, traffickers, finding Sylar or Elisbaeth Harrison. Not helping chase down an ice behmoth. Lips purse, regarding him from behind her sunglasses, that singular orange orb that passes for his eye.

And cars are screeching, tracks of rubber laid down, sirens pericing through the air as backup comes in the form of black and white vehicles, of people on foot who are coming the way audrey did both agent and officer. "Last chance there bub"

The eye bores through her glasses, staring with an aged sort of solemnity that can really, only come with that same age. She can tell he is old, just by how he moves, and speaks, and watches her. She can also tell that he is very disinterested with the cars that roll to a stop on the road, by how he keeps his eye on her.

"I've had too many last chances." Cong growls, reeling onto the place where the hydrant had been, and is now a stream of water- fodder- ice, when it climbs across the asphalt. "See you again, nuhai." The golem plants his palms into the stream, and as he freezes the pipe underneath, it buckles and pops open like foil. The water washes out over the road, slicking into dark ice when he finally forces himself down into the ground below.

He's going, going, gone. Audrey's backpedaling as some ice heads her way, a chunk of it landing where she had though she doesn't think it was purposeful. It's everywhere, and will soon melt when Bao is good and gone. Leaving Audrey in his wake scowling, others calling for city works to come and deal with the fire hydrant while others try to trace and track where he may be going next.

Not that Audrey will join in. Truth be told, he's gone to ground, not gone up, and in her professional opinion, once they go to ground, you're not going to catch them.

Not till they pop their head up and you can hit em with a hammer.


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