Participants:
| Scene Title | Man And Fowl Alike |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A convergence of man and beast, in the form of post religious noshing. Some people enjoy the Penguins that swarm, others? They just want to hunt. |
| Date | June 20, 2010 |
Before the bomb, Chelsea was most known for being "gay-friendly," home of the stereotypical "Chelsea Boy." It was a place of culture and art, of eclectic ethnic restaurants and cutting-edge performing arts studios.
One of the last places in Manhattan to be reopened to the public, the streets of Chelsea almost give the impression of an urban ghost town. Many buildings are dark, inhabited only by the homeless, if by anyone at all. Their walls have been tagged with graffiti, the windows broken; forgotten cars line the streets, slowly rusting away. Close inspection reveals that their interiors have already been gutted of anything valuable or useful.
Housing in Chelsea is quite cheap; it therefore doesn't stay on the market long, despite the potential threat of residual radiation. The population has become a mixture of all ethnicities, desperation being their thread in common; those who have the money to live elsewhere do. Culture seems to have been washed out entirely on the neighborhood scale, survival taking vast precedence over art.
"Genevieve… Genevieve! Let go of the god damned Penguin!"
In this section of chelsea, the penguins have descended en mass. It looks like a few families were exiting a restaurant when the black and white bodies converged this early afternoon. Escapee's from the zoo when the storm of the century had free'd them, a randomly seen sight in New York. But with the storm gone, and the increased wetness, the lack of food for them, they were getting desperate.
Brennan is part of the group coming out of the diner, two young children, one of which who barreled head on into the crowd of penguins with a squeal, to try and wrap her arms around one. Succeeding in it too. Everywhere they are, doddling out of the alley, darting in front of a vehicle that had to stop for them, honking his horn to no affect. Shop keepers who are open are looking out their windows, someone opening their door to get a good look to only have a penguin dart in with a sqwuak in the hopes that maybe there will be fish?
Since getting so many new big boy toys, Kendall has been staying cooped up in the house entirely too much. And given her self-appointed role as his guardian, Melissa has decided to drag him out. Whether he likes it or not. She's dressed in her usual black on black, leather pants and a corset this time, and has some bruises, along with some odd line-type marks on her face. But she's cheery enough.
"Oh c'mon, it's not that bad. Everything will still be there when we get home," she's telling her ward as they stroll along. Her steps slow though when she spots the bit of chaos going on, and her head tilts. "The hell is that? Are those…penguins?" Her head tilts the other way and she blinks. "And Doc Brennan?" That does it, she must investigate!
Kendall is being dragged out, and does not like it! Well, at least this time he's not being forced into a costume in order to go outside. Following dispiritedly behind Mels, he fiddles with his iPhone as he walks, like so many teenagers tend to do. See, growing up reading books all the time, Kendall has learned the fine art of being able to walk while looking at something in his hands, and not run into anyone or anything. Peripheral vision training: Success. As such, when the penguins come into view, he blinks and looks up. "…penguins?" he repeats, eying them.
ORDER: It is now your pose.
Magnes was checking out a nearby video game store he'd yet to see before, coming out with a bag of cheap retro games. "Tonight it's me and you, Jetson's The Movie game." He then looks around, wearing a red t-shirt with the Flash's symbol on it, and some blue jeans. The penguins definitely grab his attention, and he's reaching down to hold a finger out to one.
Adam just happens to be driving down the street and he's weaving here and there without much focus or care for who might be in the road. At the sea of black he does hit the breaks. He gets out of the driver's side door and narrows his eyes a moment and says to himself, "I think.." he pauses thoughtfully, "I think hunting is not out of the question." and moves to the rear of his suv.
Food?
Food
That's what the one penguin thinks that Magnes's extended finger is when he tries to make friends like you would a dog. Snap goes the beak on his finger, clamping down a few times, the little tongue inside it's mouth whipping back and forth and tasting.
The driver of the one vehicle is out now, door opened, then closed, going for his trunk much like Adam is while others call for the police. "911? There's fucking penguins covering the road.// A passerby is bellowing into his phone, agog at the sight that Melissa and Kendall are greeted with.
A curling brook is procured though, and the man sets about to wading into them, sweeping the penguins, shooing them off to the sidewalks. "Get, git, get on with you. Damned penguins" Brennan's wading into the mass, fifty or more of the three kinds at the zoo, trying to get to one child, even as her sibling and twin is following behind, clapping hands. "Penguins Daddy!" Joy of joys.
Melissa shakes her head as she watches Magnes get bitten, and she looks to Kendall. "Better go help your bud before he becomes a snack," she mutters to him, before she starts moving towards Brennan and his offspring. "Having problems, Brennan?" she calls out to him, a wry smile on her lips.
"Do birds ever get rabies, or is that a mammal thing?" Kendall queries as he obediently moves forward to assist Magnes with the whole penguin problem. "Where did… these penguins come from?" he stamps his feet, hoping to startle them away from him just in case any think that he looks tasty too.
Magnes pulls his finger back after it gets snapped, yelping once before shaking his head. "Damnit, Pen Pen didn't bite. You guys are hungry, aren't you?" he asks after rubbing his sore finger on his jeans. "Hey! Can someone help me round up these penguins, and call animal control?"
Adam rummages through the back of his suv. He seems to be taking his time, much like one might consider what clothes to wear before a date. He asks himself, "Is an assault rifle too much?" he hmms, "A shotgun might be ok, but horrid for trophies." he shakes his head for a few moments, "Handguns? Seems a bit under stated." he pauses lightly before he finally comes out with a hunting rifle. "I suppose the classics are the best."
'Melissa! See if you can reach Genevieve, get her off the damned bird. I think someones calling animal control. I didn't know there were this many. What, did they all reproduce over the storm?!" He's turning around to see Dessandra making a grab for one, the bird lunging away.
The penguin waddles forward, making a bid for MAgnes's feet, even as someone's pointing to adam "He has a gun!"
"you're asking me? I have no idea," Melissa says, starting for the rugrat, only to stop when she hears 'gun'. "Kendall get down!" she yells, hand moving to her back as she scans the crowd looking for the culprit, gaze landing on Adam. "Dude, you wanna put that gun down right fuckin' now."
Well gee, when someone yells at you to get down, you react in some way, right? Kendall immediately drops to the ground, uh…. a bit more forcefully than he intended, considering he slams his chin into the asphalt. "Ow." he complains.
Magnes starts trying to back up from the penguin, then someone yells about a gun, and his eyes scan the area until he spots Adam's. He immediately starts walking over, trying to keep a faster pace than the penguin at the same time. "What the hell, Adam? What happened to all the no evil stuff? If you're about to shoot penguins, shooting penguins counts as evil."
Adam glances over in the direction of Melissa, Kendall, Brennan and the kids. His face is entirely blank, as if he's not registering them, he is in fact, loading is rather nice rifle. Then he hears Magnes trying to do his Peta bit, "Not if I eat it. Then it's just hunting. Unless you've turned into one of those vegetarian hippies." he says, "By the by, did you ever get that chip out of your neck?"
"P..pardon me?" Brennan's staring at the man loading the hunting rifle, eyes wide. "You realize that these are zoo penguins, right? That to hunt them, shoot them…." Brennan makes a bid to grab Genevieve, catching at her sweater and giving her a tug back, dragging the penguin with them.
Kendall gets down, scraping his chin in the process and little webbed feet just pitter patter all over him, standing on his back in an effort to get a better view of the lay of the land and see if there might be a fish or two somewhere to eat.
Melissa is very much not a member of PETA. She likes steak just fine thankyouverymuch. But shooting and kids do not, in her mind, mix. She keeps her gaze on him while her hand finds the butt of her pistol, and she begins easing out of the penguins and away from the kids. "Brennan, get your kids and Kendall out of here," she says without looking back. Then she's clearly addressing Adam. "Don't know who you are, but put the gun up. You could miss and hit someone else, and then you'd be in for a hell of a bad time," she says, sounding pretty damn convincing. All that practice ordering people around in the Den and Tartarus probably.
Kendall blinks. He's got penguins on top of him? The hell? "Hey!" he exclaims, then lunges to his feet before they decided to poop on him. He grabs for one at this point, for lack of anything else to do. "What do we do with them?" he asks, eying around, although especially at Adam. "What the hell, dude."
"like he said, they're zoo penguins, and you can't just go shooting a rifle in public for no reason. Do you know how crazy that sounds?" Magnes then rubs the mark on his neck at the question, and shakes his head. "I haven't yet, I got leads, but… this is really not the time or place to discuss that. You're about to shoot penguins, who shoots penguins?"
Adam pauses, not at Melissa's innuendo or Kendall's bewilderment or Brennan's insistence that these penguins are protected by the zoo, but Magnes' question of who shoots penguins. "Actually, I did. We were on a steamship from Montreal to London and they took the arctic route. We got off the ship and hunted penguins." he then looks at Magnes, "You'd think they taste like chicken, but they don't. They taste fowl."
Brennan's getting nervous. Bona fide crazy man is literally going to shoot penguins. His grip on his daughter tightens, reaching behind him blindly for his other daughter, people starting to scatter, even the man who's been sweeping at them has been getting back to his car and hunkering down behind the wheel after throwing his broom at Adam though it really doesn't get far and does the unintended job of scattering some of the flightless birds.
911 is now called for a very different reason, about the crazy man with the gun.
Doooown goes the one on Kendall's back, sqwuaks as he slides down and lands with a thump but one wanders too close and Kendalls soon in posession of one, wriggling in his arms. Dessandra's form missed by her dad but claps her hands "See the pengins! So pretty" The innocence of youth means that she doesn't notice the guns or gives them meaning in her little mind. Babrbies, ponies, food, parents and fairies are her total sum knowledge.
Well, Adam isn't putting up the gun, and Melissa has Kendall to keep safe. Not to mention Brennan's kids are there too. She's told him to put it up twice, and been ignored, so her own pistol is brought up, aimed at him, and the trigger is pulled, sending a .40 caliber round speeding towards the crazy man with the gun who seems intent on shooting something. At least she isn't aiming for his head? The chest is a larger target after all.
Kendall has a wriggling penguin in his arms! And now Melissa is shooting people! Kendall flinches and almost drops the penguin . o O (why am I holding this thing again?) and he runs away from her. She's shooting a gun! At people!
"You're completely missing the point!" Magnes then jumps back a good ten feet from the gunshot, crouching and tossing his bag in the air with lowered gravity. It can stay up there for a while. "What the hell, Melissa? I could have talked him down!"
Life is about repitition. You train as a soldier to react before thought occurs. You repeat it until it becomes second nature, until it becomes what some might call an instinct, though it is not. And that is what happens now. It occurs before he is even hit, really, though there isn't anyone here, including Adam who would know that, but he's already turned as he's shot through the undercarriage of his arm in the side of his chest.
The loaded rifle is leveled and he shoots back. Even Magnes, who had been talking to him, could see it wasn't really a thoughtful action. And in Adam's hands, Melissa would be dead, perhaps even whoever's behind her. But, there's a streak of blood under his shirt and while that, in itself, is not unusual, the blossoming of blood that does not slow is not. And so his aim is off and Melissa is, instead, hit in the shoulder with a bullet of a stronger calibre than hers.
But rather concentrating on the hit, Adam looks down at his chest and frowns. The pain registers, but he's made a life, a fighting style, an art form of living with pain. What seems to have him concentrating is the fact the blood is not stopping. He's flabberghasted, he does not have a response, he does not have a witty quip. He has, "oh" which in the lexicon of Adamness is not his best work. Had he come across a negator before? Probably, briefly, so his first thought is to climb into the back of his suv and out of sight. After that, he should probably get to the driver's side of his car.
When she's hit Melissa's body spins with the force of the bullet and she sucks in a sharp, pained breath. She's been shot before. In the same shoulder even, but it hurts every time. She nearly drops the pistol in her hand as she stumbles back a pace, wincing. "Kendall's more important than your ego," she snaps at Magnes. "You want him alive, get him out of here now. He raises that gun again, I will end him before I risk any kid here." Which is why her gaze is remaining steadily on Adam.
Jesus. Over penguins. The two children scream then, their wails rising as the reports of guns go off, Melissa's and then the crack from Adam's and the blood that follows blossoming across respective flesh. When adam ducks into the open trunk of his SUV, negation stops, cuts off and his ability kicks back in, no hint or trace of whom might be responsible, or even if it was someone responsible. He knows in his long life, that there are drugs and many different kinds of abilities that do what just happened.
Penguins scatter, taking off to the four winds, waddling away even as people from in the diner run out, snatch up the two girls from Brennan who is already moving for Melissa. "CALL THE COPS" He yells into the diner, trying to tug the multi hue'd hair woman back, a glance to Magnes then back to Melissa. Kendall has taken off, nowhere to be seen.
Magnes is rushing to Melissa when she's hit, stumbling for a few feet in that flicker of ability loss. When he gains his footing again, he moves to place a hand on Melissa's shoulder so she could feel gravity pressing against the wound after he removes his hand again. "He's gone! Adam's leaving, just come on, I'll get you to someone who can fix you up after we find Kendall. Let's go!" He doesn't seem intent on leaving her here, especially to fight Adam alone, if it comes to that.
Whatever Adam does in the Suv is unclear to everyone through the tinted windows. The back hatch closes, but then, he's got an arsenal of weapons inside. It's quiet for a moment, no movement, nothing occuring. He could be setting up anything. But eventually, he becomes visible in the driver's side window and looks in Melissa's direction. He settles there for a series of seconds, as if he was waiting for a traffic light while he stared at her, and then he turns on the ignition and begins to drive away.
Melissa doesn't resist Brennan. She lets him tug her away, while she tucks the gun away, out of sight. She looks down at her shoulder and grimaces. "Dammit, not again. Blood's gonna ruin the corset," she mutters. Yes, it sounds as though she's more concerned about the corset than her own shoulder. "Brennan, go. Get your kids out of here. I'll go find…" Quick flip through the mental file, but she finishes lamely with, "someone. Magnes, find Kendall, take him home. I'll be fine. Not the first time I've been shot. And your friend is leaving." So much fussing! Though she's well aware she's probably made a new enemy.
Telling a doctor to go away, when she's shot. There's a glance to magnes, that funny heavy feeling again of natural gravity gripping the young man when he negates him. "Keep pressure on it, Put your hand down firm, if you have a hanky or anything, use it" Mel has folks, he knows that and from the diner is the screams from his daughters even as Adam's driving away, a bullet giving him a taste of mortality that he otherwise never feels.
"If anything goes wrong Melissa… call" The sound of Sirens can be heard in the background, some penguins gone, others slipping and sliding making their way away slowly but surely.
Magnes stumbles back, and that's the second time he's had the tell-tale feeling of negation. If he knew the doctor's name, he could possibly piece it together, but for now he's just confused. "I'll find him, just be safe!" he says before trying his best to shamble away, then just trips and falls to his hands and knees. He learned to fall while learning to skate, but that doesn't make it hurt much less sometimes. "Crap, what's going on…"
Melissa smiles tightly at Brennan. "What could go wrong?" she asks, pulling out her phone, her left arm cradled against her body. "I'm just gonna see if one of my friends is free. Good thing about having paramedic buddies, yanno?" But for now, she needs to get off the street, away from the crowd. Though a woman alone is more easily seen than a woman in a crowd. So for now she hangs by Brennan, letting him block the view of her bloody shoulder while she dials and holds the phone up to her ear.
She has a friend, paramedic. Cops are coming and she doesn't have legal ID - that he knows of - and she did fire a weapon. Magnes is good to go, take care of her and so Brennan backs off, heading into the diner where his friends are holding his girls.
High noon, showdown at the Nite Owl. Man and fowl alike scattering to the four winds. Just another day in New York City.