Participants:
| Scene Title | See SCOUT Hunt |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Evolved hunt Evolved hunt Evolved through the bowels of the Bronx. The system at work is a beautiful thing. |
| Date | November 18, 2008 |
The Bronx is the northernmost borough of Greater New York, and even before the explosion, this area was diverse. Though known infamously throughout the world to be a low-income area, it was not without its finer points, as well as home to the Yankee Stadium. It was dense with life, for better or for worse.
For now, it is the the south-west areas of the Bronx that are unrecognisable. Clean up has not gone steadily, and buildings still lie in ruination. It is now hard to tell what this place is even for. During the day, construction teams work to clear more and more roads of South Bronx, although people seem to take liberties by driving over the burnt out rubble if they have the means. There are make-shift trailer camps and soup kitchens for those that don't have a place to go. One feature of South Bronx is the Yankee Stadium, so far untouched. There is irreparable damage done to the building itself, and no game has played there since the tragedy. Graffiti tags the areas available, and people often congregate illegally upon the wrecked grounds. The field itself is overgrown with weeds between fallen debris.
Heading away from Manhattan, the Bronx takes on more function and hope. This borough, once a place of Jewish immigrants, then Latin-Americans and African Americans, is now a diverse mix of all races, any and all New Yorkers taking up residence on the other side of the wreckage. There is even a semblance of a transport system, the electricity back on and functioning, but crime rates are higher than ever.
A bachelor is popping chicken fingers out of the microwave, while someone's girlfriend is preheating an oven across the street, trying to make the best of a quarter of a pound of meat patties she'd found on the edge of sidewalk. She'd cut the worm-riddled sections out, crossed her fingers and hoped for the best; decided she'd give her girlfriend that portion because the bitch deserved it anyway, turning tricks without a condom. What the fuck was that about?
Even at dinner-time, the Bronx is all about muck that eats itself. Those who work here and live elsewhere have long since desertd the streets, and the shortening of the day, the approach of dusk seems to evacuate even the sparrows and the pigeons with more and panicky speed than it does most other parts of Manhattan. Buses don't stop as long, dogs can't seem to shut up; even the rats seem to die more often here, congealing surprises for the grocer, the butcher, the garbage man with a hole in his boot. These and others know better than to come when they hear a scream.
Though the truth was, she'd been screaming for awhile before then, pinned to the floor of the liquor store on the curb of a side street. The clerk at the counter was too dead to hear; no one else capable of doing so, until she sent a man out of the front window, broken glass a post-modern halo around him, a quizzical expression behind his ski-mask, the vague realization that they probably should have tried this a little later in the day.
Despite the fact that Hagan has money to be spending all his time in much nicer neighborhoods, it's not as easy to find scum to harass. Particularly, scum of the anti-evolved variety. He's been lingering in the streets, completely hidden by the shadows with help from his power. The only way anyone might detect his presence is by cigarette smoke that seems to have no source.
When the scream rings out, the Irishman tries to determine his source. Moving slowly so he can remained concealed by the shadows, he heads towards the source of the disruption.
At least one dog stops barking as Pam stops by the chain-link fence and stoops. "Hey, there. What's got you upset?" she asks the four-legged critter. It's right about then the woman in the liquor store lets out another scream. Pam straightens up, wincing, and starts to dig in her pocket for her cellphone. Which she apparently forgot to take this morning.
One thug remains in the store, his gun shaking in his hand. He's no longer laughing like he was about five seconds ago, since the situation is no longer something he'd call even close to funny. He clutches the tattered backpack that the contents of the cash register have been stuffed into tighter to his side, backing away from the woman on the floor with an expression of fear clear as day on his face. "What the hell, bitch? Somethin' wrong with you?"
Somewhere up in the surrounding buildings the crash of glass has been heard and noticed, and the shaking fingers of an aging grandmother punch in the numbers that even the children on the street have ingrained into their heads: 9-1-1. The neighborhood may have gone to shit a long time ago, but there are still concerned citizens living in it.
Nate picks himself up. Shakes himself off, with a tinkle-tinkle of splintered glass off black canvas. He doesn't require any time to congratulate himself on not removing his mask to do the deed, else he'd have his scalp riddled with pointy shit.
He puts his hands on the sidewalk and has to stumble to find his feet, zips himself up before pounding on his chest. "Shithead!" They hadn't picked codenames. Sue him. "Shithead, come on! Let's get out of here!" Despite the gut-level wrench of anger that comes of the rude interruption, and going out the front in spectacular fashion, the cold wind and conspicuousness of standing right out in the street remind him of where they are. What they need to do. "Someone's probably called the fucking PD! Just shoot the bitch and let's go."
The bitch in question watches the other thug in question. Her hair's in her face, not quite obfuscating the ageing lines of snot and fatigue there both. Fear holds her in place for a moment, the floor cold on her back and purse just out of reach, repugnance of herself and of the men. It isn't a long moment before one of the two clashing sentiments win out. The next instant, her hand twitches; the air ripples at the other thug, converging like a spearhead toward the gun in his grip.
Hagan would certainly not call himself a hero, but broken glass and women screaming at -least- bears investigating. So the shadow man moves forward and inside, his body concealed to all but telepaths. He slips into the liquor store and stares at the scene he finds. He curses a long string of silent curses and flails a little bit. There's the sound of swishing clothing, but no one can be seen.
He's just in time to catch sight of the flickering. It takes a millisecond or so for his brain to process what just happened. He flicks his hand towards the gunman who now finds himself unable to see. It's like all the lights just went off.
Pam mutters a curse word under her breath as she comes up phoneless. She darts to the nearest door, rapping on it with her knuckles. "Hey! Anyone in there?" A glance down the street. "Someone needs to call the cops!"
"You hear they're making a sequel to the Italian Job?" Comes the question from the driver as the sleek black BMW makes its way down the street. "Calling it the Brazillian Job. I don't know if that'll be good." Comes the followup to his own question. The black vehicle is unique in that a steel cage separates the front seats from the back. Also a siren is on the interior of the top of the car.
"I really like Edward Norton though."
Two men sit in the vehicle. Captain William Harvard sits in the Driver's seat, his hand drumming idly on the steering wheel. The two men are dressed, not as Police Officers, and not SWAT members, but something in between. They are highly equipped including thick Kevlar vests. Shotguns and assault rifles are in the trunk, but those are only used if needed. The driver reaches down to the cupholders where his coffee cup rests. Bringing it up he takes a sip…
"Harvard. We have a situation on 140th and Ashby," Comes the chirping from the radio inside the car.
The cup goes back to the cupholders as William reaches up and switches on the sirens. Just a couple blocks. The accelerator pedal is slammed to the floor. "On it. Is it Evolved?" Comes William's response to the radio.
The .45 in Sam's possession splits into two, halving the bullet in the chamber; the man manages to step backward seconds before the telekinetic swipe cuts his sternum in two. Instead, a new seam opens horizontal across the front of his sweater, revealing a gap of skin and a shallow beading of blood, guided more by tactile sensation and instinct than any real idea of what's going on. Inconveniently, he finds himself blind. It warrants a barrage of curses, seconds before a blunt telekinetic blast knocks him backward off his feet. He hits a rack of beer with a sound like chewed sand, winds up flailing in froth until his shoulder bounces off the wall, the next curse knocked out of him.
A long, thick arm reaches in through the window's new-formed hole: Nate, having crossed the pavement in a single stride, three feet taller than he had been a moment ago, to pluck the over-packed bag from his partner. Hagan's given an instant warning, a glimpsed of the gun exposed at the small of his back from clothes he'd suddenly outgrown, before he yanks it out. Pivots with vicious grace surprising for a giant. He hauls back on the trigger and an arc of fire tears out, ripping across the empty air toward the odd swatch of darkness in the lamp-light. He isn't stupid: he knows that weird shit in his partner's eye hadn't come out of him.
This kind of thing is precisely why Hagan does -not- like playing the hero. But given the victim seems to be very much Evolved, he finds himself with new motivation. There's a strange, half-gulping sound from the shadows seconds before the gun is fired. He darts to the left, bullet grazing his arm and cutting through the side of his jacket. "Oh you, -fucker!-" comes a voice from the shadows, seconds before the whole -room- falls into darkness, except the areas closer to the door that are tinged with street light.
Oh, hey. That looks like a police response. Or at least, something similar to one. Pam turns about to regard the black BMW warily, staying where she is. Civilians shouldn't get involved in this stuff! HAGAN.
His partner today is decidedly NOT Gabriel Patrick McNamara. And thus, the man's responses are lacking to say the least to William's banter. A little, "Unh." Or "Oh." Here and there but nothing substantial to meet any formal social standard or protocol. But then the silent man seems to perk up at the sudden exponential increase in action. The SCOUT Operative straightens in his seat as he makes the appropriate responses in the radio as his current partner makes the also very appropriate maneuvers of the vehicle.
Cutting around a corner, the only sound to announce the black BMW is the screeching of tires and hum of the engine. The flashing of the red light in the top of the windshield could give some warning as to what exactly this vehicle is going to deliver. The Piggies are here. And they are not your standard piggies. The black vehicle roars down the street towards the liquor store.
There is a moment of quiet, between the intrusion of artificial darkness and the sudden cessation of gunfire. Out of it, she comes, looking all the world like a broken clockwork doll. Her left leg isn't connected right anymore; keeps giving a click every time she takes a step, and there's a patch of scalp missing, just above her ear, a lock of bleached-blonde hair with it. A bruise is healing on her throat and the veins stand out around her hands as if bloated. The woman's eyes turn to and fro in their hollows, assessing the situation as much as she can between all the black and all the red.
Rage that is not remotely viral in origin. Boils the veins, replaces the scalding sensations of exhaustion and pain with something she can almost use.
She reminds herself to breathe. When she opens her hands, the store's cock-eyed facade explodes.
Brick, plaster, sheared rebar take Sam backward in a tumble of limbs, and a snapped-off parking meter comes spinning toward Hagan as if it were a golf club, his head an abandoned ball, a concussive wave rolling out with enough raw power to knock even the gun-toting giant back onto his side with a shout. The sidewalk begins to run amber and clear fluid and a dozen car alarms go off, stabbing the evening air with wailing staccato.
The moment the concussive wave begins, the light snap back on. Hagan is thrown bodily, his knees whacked by the butt of the parking meter, shredded ends cutting deep into his ankle. He's also caught by flying glass debris that slices his arm and cuts his side. He ends up face-down on the sidewalk, shattered glass peppered across him. He's unconscious and leaking his own share of the amber that drips across the sidewalk.
There will be a lot of drinking later.
Pam shrieks and ducks down behind a mailbox as glass shatters, brick bursts, and all that other noise and commotion happens. She's far enough aways that the sidewalk isn't melting on her, but when she pokes her head up from behind her post-related shield, she sees people in varying stages of distress. Eyes wide, Pam gets up and starts hurrying over toward the nearest injured.
Screeching to a halt, the shouting begins almost immediately. "Get the fuck down!" Comes William's Partner's voice as the man opens the door, sidearm drawn already and trained on.. someone in the Liquor store. William is also immediately out of the vehicle, his gun also drawn and trained on the suddenly tall man with the gun.
"Don't move!" It's obvious there is Evolved Activity. His eyes flash to an approaching woman. His head bobs to fully examine her.. And for a moment he just stares. Then comes to his senses. "Ma'am! Please stay back! No one move!"
Nate is similarly disconcerted. He'd been under the impression there were only two Evolved here, himself. He's still one-up the keeled-over Irishman and the handful of other broken bystanders, however, in that he's still conscious. For the second time in the space of five minutes, he picks himself up, noticing that his comrade's face is now free of secondhand shadows but looking more than slightly dazed despite that Nate's build had protected him from the brunt of the blast.
"This is why I beat hookers," he remarks irreverently, kicking Sam in the ribs even as he snags the backpack up over his shoulder. He's actually lost track of his gun, much to his aggravation, and his partner's lays in two parts somewhere amid the glitter and drip of ruined plateglass and mixing spirits. His parting shot with his erstwhile victim is cheap, a caustic shout: "You weren't any fucking good anyway." He looks at William for a protracted moment. Slings the backpack over his shoulder and, abruptly, breaks into a run.
Shrinks while he does: exchanging running speed for a smaller target, even as the telekinetic, staggering, amps up for another blast. Eyes bloodshot, she steps out across splintered wood and glass, her power constricting itself around a narrow focus. She fires. A single column of screaming kinetic that misses her fleeing quarry by inches — only to swing haphazardly toward William as left leg crumples beneath her.
Hagan remains unconscious, though there are slight twitchings and shifts to denote signs of life. He's not going to be moving for a few minutes yet.
Pam comes to a halt; she looks over at William hesitantly, then back at Hagan. She wants to check to see if he's alright. On the other hand… telekinetic lady. Blowing things up. She bites her bottom lip, trying to resist the urge to call out to her.
Jordan, William's silent until now partner is caught up in the blast as the windows shatter from the telekinetic's projectile. The car teeters backwards as Jordan's body makes a solid dent against it. William, being on the other side of the car dances back with his arms up to protect his face, and other than shards of glass battering against his kevlar, he remains unshaken. A frown as the man takes off, though William's gun is now trained on the poor girl. "Jordan!"
"Unnh—" Comes the groan of the response from the man crumpled on the ground.
He won't be much help. William's eyes dart from the lady to the escaping criminal. A decision must be made. Or both must be taken care of. Crouching, William is suddenly flying through the air, up and over the car and into the liquor store in a single bound. On his short flight over the man has managed to bring his tazer free, which is promptly discharged at the woman. Once that is done, he will turn to take after the shorty.
Taser hits woman with a clack-a-clack of high-voltage discharge before she even sees it coming. Blue lightning frolics up her ripped blouse, snares through her hair; her eyes roll back in their sockets and she falls like a thing of cards, sloughing down onto a matted carton, a vented cork poking into her ribs and beer soaking into her sock. Her breathing slows before her heartbeat. Finally, released into the oblivion of sleep.
In the meantime, shorty gets taller as he puts some distance between himself and the telekinetic, albeit only a little: his running legs lengthening back out to their normal size, pouring adrenaline into speed. He cuts a sharp right around a corner, vanishing from view of erstwhile terrorist and appropriately nervous veterinarian. The instant William hangs the same turn, however, he finds himself confronted with a leg the size of a young tree, a shin like tube steel flat across the pelvis. Nate, just buying himself a little more space.
After a moment or two, there's a convulsion of movement from Hagan. A second later and he's rolling over and coughing a painful, rattled cough. He starts to sit up, but pain from various injuries makes him flop back down on the debris. He alternates between clutching the bullet graze on his arm and the metal sliced skin of his ankle.
Well, screw standing still. Pam gets moving again, hustling over to the fallen Hagan. "I told you to take care!" she protests as she nears his side. "Uh, not that I should really be criticizing you at the moment." She looks him over; shin, then arm. "Did you get shot?"
Hopping out of the liquor store, William grabs the radio on his shoulder. "I need an ambulance, I have an officer down. Backup, and a HomeSec pick up. Multiple suspected Evolved. In pursuit." Comes the man's voice as he starts to pursue the man. A little glance is given to Pam as the man starts to pursue.. Was that a wink?
Then the man is in a full on sprint after the culprit. William is fast, but he's not SuperHuman in that sense, though when he turns the corner he demonstrates just exactly how he is superhuman. The moment William hangs the corner, a very large leg is awaiting him. But before contact can be made, William springs.
Launching himself into the air, the man is now hanging from a windowsill of the building. One arm clinging to the window sill, the other has that Glock drawn and pointed at the man below. "I wouldn't move." He suggests.
Around that corner, everything has gone eerily quiet. The last functioning bar of fluorescent light falls off the ceiling amid a tangle of uprooted wires, and sputters into darkness a few feet from the fallen telekinetic. Sam's beginning to move, twitching, groaning, one arm around his ribs. As Pam picks through the glass, the rivulets of spilled alcohol bend away from her feet, obeying the draw of gravity over the slanted street in eerily ordered obedience to physics.
William, on the other hand. Nate stares up the Glock's barrel. The black muzzle pointed almost exactly dead center of his still-masked face would require him to cross his eyes if he were to look directly at it, but he has no interest. His lip curls, visible underneath the overhang of cloth over his mouth, implying the contemptuous shape of a sneer. "You're cheating," he points out, lowly. "I'm fucking unarmed." Above William's head, an apartment window slams shut; a father pulls his wife and infant close to his chest, hoping that the frenetic hammer-bleat of his own heart isn't audible over the thunder of their own terrified pulses.
"YES I fucking got shot!" Hagan's more than a little upset about this whole turn of events. "Did that woman, the woman I was trying to help, did she concuss me?! That's no kind of gratitude. She needs new manners!" Then cue more wincing in pain caused by all the flailing. He closes his eyes and lies back against the ground for a moment. "I feel like perforated cheese cloth."
Pam crouches down amid the glass shards, wincing as she reaches toward his head. "Let me check for abrasions. Of course I forget my cellphone on a day like today." She's trying to see if he's got a head injury; a concussion would suck. William and his winkiness are spared a quick glance, a puzzled look, and then she's back to tending to Hagan.
Jordan however is also slowly regaining his wits. As he moves slowly the man goes for his sidearm and brings it up as Sam as he practically crawls forward. "Don't.. move.." He says out of breath. Using his knees and one hand to move him forward his gun remains trained on Sam, though blood is leaking from a nasty wound on the back of his head. "You. Registration card. Now." He says with a pointed glance to Hagan. Then to Pam. "Please get the fuck back, Ma'am. This is a fucking crime scene." With that he rests on his knees bringing up his free hand to call for backup as well.
"Criminals have rules now? Well, I'm going to go ahead and say it's okay for me to cheat. Because you will probably cheat anyways. Am I right?" Comes the condescending question from the man easily hanging above Nate. "Now, on the ground, hands behind your head." William commands sternly.
Something shifts behind Nate's eyes: hate, spite, something almost amusingly like righteousness heating those otherwise algid blue orbs. "I like your leash, prick. You'll look good dying in it, when they show you it's a fucking noose. Okay. I'll go in your fucking cage." He straightens, raises his arms to lace long fingers behind his head, though he never takes his eyes off the other Evolved man's weapon. Slow, stretched clothes creaking and bag swinging, ponderously meticulous for a man of over seven feet, he eases down toward a crouch.
Never actually gets there. Abruptly, he's bolting. Throwing himself sideways, long legs shortening, skull shrinking even as he bolts, counting on the possibility that while William's training and reflexes might be enough to compensate for the movement and desperation of a career criminal, shrinking will give him the edge.
"You're asking an injured man several lacerations and a possible concussion for a -card-? I'm not one of those crazy power people. Why, do only super people try and stop rapes in this city?" Hagan's irritation and sudden tension causes more pain. He makes a low whimpering sound. He's really not -terribly- injured, he just has several localized injuries that each give him a different kind of pain. The overall effect is…not pleasant. He doesn't try to stop Pam from looking over his wounds, but he doesn't say anything to her either.
Pam edges back, holding up her hands. "I was just trying to help," she tells Jordan. "He's hurt. Not too seriously, though." Not that he asked for her opinion or anything!
This man has given him every reason to shoot, but still William does not. He must uphold every value and note of the law. Placing his feet firmly against the wall that he is clinging to the man bounces off once again. This time the man is soaring through the air for an extended amount of time. Nate has a head start, but he can have it.. William does not need much time. The man flies, his body graceful going end over end as he soars through the distance between him and the fugitive. Then. A soft clap as William's feet touch down softly on the ground, directly in Nate's path. The other man will have a hard time avoiding the trick being played back on him, because now it is William's foot in the air awaiting contact with a particular face..
The Sirens can be heard now as Jordan makes his way weakly to Sam. Cuffs are placed on the man's wrists and once that is done the gun is pointed at Hagan. "I saw that prick, now like I said, Registration Card." He gives Pam a dismissive wave. The police.. the regular police will be here soon.
"What, do you want mine, too?" Pam demands of Jordan with an irate expression. "Stop pointing that gun at him. He hasn't done anything wrong."
Face meets foot with a violent crunch of cartlidge breaking, blood spurting. Nate goes backward, head over heels, and the back of his head meets concrete with the same sound. Only, you know, louder. A spasm roils through his small body, the program to run still twitching in his legs, spinal cord, before it dies in a soundless fizzle of bio-electrical signals. He lays bonelessly slack on the concrete, his straightened arms and legs slowly sizing out his natural height. Jolted off his shoulder by the velocity of his halt, the backpack skids to a halt neatly at William's heel.
Sam's cuffed. He doesn't comment, glowering instead at the Irishman and the veterinarian. Fortunately, he'd been a little too, you know, blind to detect the man responsible for that bullshit. He refrains from commenting, turning a sour face toward the distant shape of the telekinetic still facedown in the liquor store.
"Oh Jesus Christ. You're a right bastard aren't you? Isn't there some law in this country about tending to bleeding injuries before interrogation? You don't have any proof that I did anything not-human. I don't have a fecking card all right, and I'm not Evolved." Hagan tries to sit up, but a scratch on his side makes that painful. He fingers the gun wound. "Look, look is there a hunk of glass sticking into my back?" He rolls over to let Pam have a look. It's not glass, it's a splinter of wood. And it's not that deep. "Shouldn't you be helping your partner there with catching the fucking rapists and robbers?"
"You know, you came in an unmarked car. Do you have a badge I can see?" Pam demands indignantly.
"Hands behind your head." The gun is pointed with both hands at Hagan. Jordan is standing, albeit weakly. "You are under arrest. We're going to take you downtown and talk a little bit, arsehole." Jordan replies with a pathetic smirk. And it is about then that the black and whites show up. Weeow, weeow, weeow. A badge is quickly produced. "SCOUT, ma'am. And if I wasn't a cop, do you think.." He motions to the noise of sirens. "They would be coming to help me?"
Pam stomps over through the wreckage to give the badge a good looking-over. "This is retarded," she tells Jordan, accent strengthening with her annoyance. "He didn't -do- anything."
"Why am I under arrest? For being a good samaritan and getting blown up in the process? And you wonder why this city has such a bad reputation." Hagan rolls onto his knees and slowly gets to his feet. "Tell me what I'm being charged with." He tips his chin up and corners a look to Pam in appreciation for her support.
"We need to ask you some questions. Sir. I wouldn't want you running off. Don't insult my intelligence. You're going to have a very interesting talk with Homeland Security. Not having a Registration Card is illegal. Now! Hands behind your head!" Jordan insists as other Police officers pour onto the scene. Though not too long after a large armored truck arrives. Homesec. Agents pour out to secure both Sam, and the downed telekinetic.
"Oh fer," and then Hagan's gone. Or appears to be. One minute he was standing there, and the next he's bent the light in such a way that he's completely disappeared. It's dark enough that his retreat doesn't even flicker as he heads to a shadowy alley nearby. He'll apologize to Pam later.
Pam blinks as Hagan goes; she looks at Jordan and purses her lips. "You gonna point a gun at me, now?"
"Fuck!" Jordan exclaims as the man suddenly vanishes. "I told you he was Evolved." The man says with venom to them as he goes to holster his weapon. Then the man looks to Pam with a glare. The scene is slowly cleaned up. And soon William comes along. Escorting Jordan away smoothly, though the woman is pointed out for one of the boys in blue to get her information from. Just another day on the job.
 November 18th: Different People, Different Needs |
Previously in this storyline… Next in this storyline… |
 November 18th: Hello, Wrong Number |