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Summary: As Sophie waits for the bus, it's not the city bus that comes to claim her.
Date: February 24, 2012
Log Title: Next Stop Kidnapping
Rating: PG-13
Westchester - Salem Center
The parking lot that serves Salem Center is expansive. The mall building being the largest in the area, most of the traffic is aimed for there. However, there are a number of independent buildings along the edges of the parking lot and across the street. Benches dot the sidewalks that line the buildings, along with trash cans, bushes, trees and lamps. There is a large archway that leads to the mall entrance.
It's evening out and the stars and moon shine in the night sky. The wind rustles through the trees and most of the shops are starting to close up for the night. People are going to their cars, walking down the street chatting, or going into the few places still open for some last minute gifts. Over all it's a typical night in Salem Center.
Amidst the hussle and bustle of people going about their business, there stands one young lady apart from it all. Sophie DeCosta waits at the transit station for a bus, ostensibly to take her back to Xavier's. Her light grey skirt and white blouse stand out in the darkness, especially under the light of the moon; as does the spot beneath her throat, where a soft glow shines through her blouse. She idly adjusts the straps supporting her backpack, before her hands clasp around the top of her cane once more.
Coming out of the coffee shop and instantly looking at his phone is Nick. He's pressing buttons and frowning as he mutters to himself. "GPS app, GPS app, where the hell are you." He says as he has no clue how to get home from here. The blond looks around the street and sighs. "Figures that I don't have Taylor around this time to rescue me."
Robin is coming out of the mall, seemingly empty handed, though her blue puppet seems to be carrying a couple of bags on its wrists. The young woman pauses as she comes across the transit station and then says, "Hey, Sophie, it's been awhile!" She steps up her pace, coming towards the blind girl.
HONK! HONK! HONK! Sounds through the street as the bus goes flying down the road at high speeds. As the bus flies by Sophie people scream and rush into buildings and lock themselves inside leaving Sophie, Nicholas and Robin along outside. There's a screeeeetch of tires as the bus spins and crashes into a nearby lamppost, bringing the lamp crashing to the pavement.
"Oh! Hello Robin." Sophie tilts her head towards the other girl, and adopting a smile. "It has been a little while, I—" about that moment Sophie's sentence is cut off by a loud gasp, following the sound of, well, bedlam. She raises an arm to shield her face and cringes, unsure of where to go or what else to do. Following the crash, she rattles off a swift series of words in Spanish, followed by tilting her head in Robin's direction. "Robin! Are you alright? What has happened?"
Nicholas is finally starting to get his bearings with his cellphone GPS and figures out the direction towards the school when the screeching breaks causes him to look up. He ducks behind a bench and watches between the slats as the street lamp falls just feet from where he is. He looks around and sees the two girls and noone else. "Is everyone okay?" He calls out to no specific person.
Robin gestures forward and Blank steps between Sophie and the crashed vehicle quickly to prevent any debris from striking either one of them. At Sophie's question she says, "That bus just crashed into a lamppost, I don't know why." She looks towards Nicholas at the question, and examines Sophie and says, "I think we're both fine. Everyone else seems to be inside…"
The doors to the bus open and a loud cheering can be heard as a group of burley looking men start to climb out of the bus. About fifteen men exit all dressed in medieval looking garb, hard leathers, furs, kilts and such and all of them are fully armed with swords, shields, clubs, maces, claymores, bows and other such weapons. "Come on men, we gots us a woman to bring home!"
Sophie's eyebrows rise sharply over her blindfold, and she takes a rapid step backwards. "Robin? I think we need to go," she observes, with a palpable edge of worry in her voice. "Please, take my arm and lead me, I do not like the sound of this at all!" She backs away another step, sweeping her cane behind her, before she decides not to even wait for Robin's reply before turning and walking away, coincidentally heading towards Nicholas in the process, at the best speed she feels confident enough to risk.
Spotting the only two women in the area Nicholas walks over to them. "I think I know you from the school, uh, I'm going to call them and let them know we're on the way home. I'm Nick by the way." He says as he eyes the ruffians with discomfort. "Call me paranoid but, I don't think it's safe for us out here."
Robin tenses slightly at the things that the men say and she says, taking Sophie's arm, "Yeah, I think we'd better get out of here… this looks bad…" She positions Blank between herself and Sophie and the men and then says to Nicholas, "I'm Robin."
One of the Henchmen lets out a long sharp whistle and once it ends several things happen, all the street lights in the area seem to burst, sending plastic and light all over the pavement and an extreme cold enters the area. "Ah that's more like it!" One of them exclaims as they start to swagger on over to the trio. "That pretty blond girl, the one that be glowin', we'll be takin' her now dove." He says to Robin with a nasty looking smile filled with rotted teeth.
Sophie taps her cane enthusiastically in front of her as she retreats, now guided by Robin. "Sophie," she hurriedly introduces herself. "I…" Taking her? The spaniard flinches, halting her motions briefly as the lights shatter. She lets go of Robin and, without breaking stride or turning around, pulls her cellphone from a holster hanging off one of her pack straps. She flips it open and feels for the speed dial; her teeth start to chatter in the cold as she dials the Xaviers emergency number. "I don't want to go with you," she calls out, as she presses the phone to her ear. "I have done nothing wrong! Please just leave us alone!"
The fact that these men said they want to take the girl, well that doesn't sit well with Nick. He's not about to let anyone kidnap someone even if he doesn't know them. "Like hell you will." He says to him and reaches a hand out towards a bench. His eyes glow blue as he uses his telekinesis to rip the bench out of the pavement and fling it at the henchmen. "Run!"
Robin's motions become more mechanical and inhuman as her main body moves to help Sophie along, while Blank seems to be controlled by the girl. The puppet floats up into the air and attacks the henchmen, to buy them more time for running. As Robin's had experience in guiding Sophie during squad practices, she knows pretty well how to do it. "Blank is back there, and Nick threw a bench at them. Just keep on in a straight line with me for now…"
Two of the men look at each other and laugh. "She thinks she's done something wrong, how sweet. But ya know, it doesn't matter what she wants since the Master is paying us good money to bring her back." The men scatter as the bench is thrown at them and they take it as a signal to start attacking. With a roar they draw their weapons eight of them charging up on Sophie and Robin and the other seven charging up on Blank and Nicholas.
"Hello? Hello?!" Sophie speaks urgently into her phone as Robin leads her away, with the blind girl doing her best to keep up. "Please, can you hear me? We are at Salem Center, we are being attacked!" Sophie pauses to listen behind her; just then she stumbles, and drops the phone entirely, leaving it to go clattering across the pavement. "Robin — my phone!" Now, running while blind is not the easiest thing to accomplish, even with help, and Sophie can hear the men gaining on her and Robin. Her now free hand takes on a brilliant white glow about her palm. "Robin, tell me when they are too close," she whispers between chattering teeth.
Nicholas isn't very good at fighting with his powers yet as he's mainly used them to move things. So when the henchmen start to close in on Nick he tries to find anything he can lift, and in this case it's shards of broken glass and plastic. He lifts some off off the ground, using both hands to raise the broken bits off the ground and then throws it all the henchmen, unfortunately there isn't much force behind it as he can't throw things harder with his telekinesis than he physically could normally.
Robin nods at Sophie and then says, "They're closing in on us, I'll help to direct you…" The young woman continues guiding her, trying to help her keep her pace, but signals Sophie to attack. The puppet closes the distance with the men, and tries to attack one of them with a punch: the puppet is quite exceptionally strong.
The men themselves aren't exceptionally strong but they are exceptionally determined. As they chase after Sophie and Robin, four of them stop and drop bows and cross bows and fire arrows at the two, aiming for their legs to trip them up. The other four keep on running closing the gap. As for Blank and Nicholas, Blank's punch lands true and the henchmen goes flying backwards, the flying glass stops another two for a second but the other four start attacking Nick and Blank with their weapons.
At Robin's signal, Sophie lets go of the other girl and whirls around to face the approaching men. She lets her cane dangle from her wrist as she holds both palms out at arms length. She doesn't say a word as she unleashes a neutron blast from each hand, firing blindly into the mass of onrushing men, each intended to hit a seperate target. Just as she's firing, the attackers are as well; a blunted arrow strikes her in the knee. She shrieks loudly, immediately bending down to clutch at the joint. The movement is a mistake, and the blind girl topples to the ground, ending up sprawled out on her side and gasping for breath.
Nicholas tries to stop the two men from hitting him with his telekinesis but it's a trick he hasn't quite gotten down. Where the telekinetic push against the mace slows it down, it still hits in the shoulder and he bites back a cry of pain. The other thug though slices him in the side with his dagger as Nicholas tries to deflect the mace. In response to the injuries he uses his telekinesis to lift the bench again and bash one of the thugs.
Robin helps Sophie direct the blasts before she goes down due to an arrow in her ankle, "Agh!" She falls down and then directs for Blank to punch another one of the thugs, gritting her teeth and putting her hands around her leg, "Ow, ow!"
Another Thug gets hit and goes down from Blank leaving just one on one for now. The Henchman with the mace on Nicholas, goes to help his two mates who have been beaten up by Blank while the two that were stopped by the glass rush past them when the notice Sophie and Robin are both down.
The neutron blasts from Sophie are enough to take down three of the henchmen leaving the four with bows and one up that finally catches up. "Get her!" He instructs, as he sends a fierce kick at Robin, to the bowmen, who rush forward and all four of them try to grab Sophie.
Perhaps Sophie is sensing that the battle is going badly; it wouldn't be difficult, given that she is down on the ground, she has heard Robin go down beside her, and it sounds a lot like Nicholas is also experiencing severe pain. She asseses her options very rapidly, and makes up her mind. "Stop!" she shouts, flailing to fend off the four men grabbing at her as best she can. "Stop! Wait! Let me heal my friends! I will come quietly. Only let me help them first!"
Nicholas continues to try to fight the one guy but isn't having much luck and Sophie's right, he's not doing so good. After another stab with the knife, Nick remembers something and uses his powers to lift the one henchmen off the ground, struggling he throws him into another henchmen. "Don't go with them." He says to Sophie. "You can't trust them."
Robin shakes her head as well and says, "Sophie, no, don't let them take you…" She summons Blank on over back to herself, making the puppet float up slightly in the air, and come down on one of the bowmen with a kick to the head, but then Robin gets that kick and she curls up in on herself, not being particularly tough.
While Nick is concentrating on one Hencheman, another comes up behind him and puts a blade to his throat, another does the same to Robin as she's curled up on the ground. "You can heal 'em, but any funny business and your friends throats get slit, got it dove?" Says one of the henchmen as he grabs Sophie roughly by the arm and walks her over to Robin first to heal her and then over to Nick. The injured henchmen groan and push themselves up off the ground as at least half of them are hurt.
Sophie gasps in fear, and instinctively recoils as she's grabbed at, but forces herself to relax; or at least not to struggle. "Si," she replies. "I understand. Nick, Robin, please… not… not for my sake." She pats the air until she finds Robin, and spends the best part of a minute healing the injured girl, before doing the same for Nick; she spends longer on him, owing to his dagger wound, before she stands up; albeit she walks with a limp, favoring her wounded knee. "There is no sense in you two getting killed, they will only take me anyway," she adds. Tears dampen her blindfold and glisten on her cheek, where they start to freeze, owing to the persistance of the extreme cold that accompanied the men. "Please be gentle to me," she whispers, as she shivers; and not merely from the cold.
As the blade presses against Nick's neck he freezes in fear and when Sophie comes up to him and heals him he speaks. "Don't be an idiot, you're playing into their hands." He says but he knows she'll be taken no matter what. "Be careful." He says to the girl he barely knows.
Robin doesn't resist, and Blank freezes at Robin having a blade to her throat, unable to do much in the vulnerable situation. "I'm sorry, Sophie…" whispers the girl, feeling pretty bad that she failed in Sophie's defence.
Once the two are healed Sophie is roughly pulled away and lead towards the bus. Their is a sharp whistle as the henchmen all retreat to inside the bus and the last two on are Sophie and the one holding her. Once she's pushed up the steps and inside the bus takes off like a bullet, vanishing into thin air.
"Do not blame yourself," Sophie calls over her shoulder, before she whimpers loudly as she's roughly led on. "You tried! You both tried!" And with that, she's pulled onto the bus, and anything else she might've had to say, will have to go unsaid. The last thing seen of her before the bus vanishes, is of the blind girl raising a hand to wipe the frozen tears off her cheeks.
