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Summary: Rashmi and Robyn run into Jono in the city, lucky for them The Cheshire Cat is there for a rescue.
Date: March 10, 2010
Psamurai Pshowdown
Rating: R
NYC - Brooklyn
Brooklyn is located on the western most tip of Long Island. Brooklyn has a lot of cultural diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods and a unique architectural heritage. Along the shore are a bunch of abandoned warehouses that people rent out to hold concerts, parties, and other various events. Row houses can be found through out the most the borough built in the 19th century architectural style.
It's been a long week and Robyn had the need to leave the school. After begging Rashmi to join him, they're now in Brooklyn heading over to visit his parents. Lucky for Robyn with his father being a small time musican and his mother being an artist for children's books, they don't have a set work schedule and they're home during the day. "Thanks again for coming with me Rashmi. I just…needed to see my parents." He says as they walk out of the subway and into the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn where he grew up. "I've also been really worried about James." But then he hasn't heard what happend the previous night yet.
"It's okay… I'd rather get in trouble, honestly, than let you go on your own…" Tugging the brim of her knit cap down slightly as they emerge onto the walk, she falls silent at mention of James. "…I'm really worried about him, too. He's…" She shakes her head, watching the plume of steam rise from a heavy sigh. "…He's going to need a lot of help, I think…. last night… I've never seen him so… gone, you know?"
Williamsburg, o Williamsburg. Will you have more and better prey? The financial district has been a bit thin, this week, and a certain smiling cat has to find someone deserving of his attentions so he can pick up some spare change. Because, after all, he's not about to stiff a theatre owner to see Alice. So, one dart-throw at the metro map, a sneaky ride on the subway, and Felix Cheshire is now leaning against a wall, sipping on a chai tea, watching the people coming and going.
The source of that problem with James isn't too far away either. Jonothon really did follow the teens, internally desperate for this whole situation to be over. It's made him a fairly lousy lackey truth be told. He's just not doing the things he should be. Unstable, inclined to do things he wouldn't normally, his mind is a chaotic mess. Sitting in a spot over Felix, albeit unintentionally, the Brit is wearing more normal clothing. Black jeans and a dark tshirt. Finally looking somewhat like himself. «He loved it.» Meaning James. The words are for Rashmi and Robyn alone, sorry, Felix, but they are rich with amusement. «It's why I let him do it. To show him. The taste of the blood was brilliant.» Yeah, he enjoyed it too, in spite of the pain.
"What happened last night?" Robyn asks as he just saw him two days ago. "I saw him on Monday night and he kept having this converation with…I dunno it was like he was having it was someone else. And then he tried to attack me and then stopped himself. I think Jono some how got in his head that night we found him." Robyn says before Jono's voice sinks into his head and he jumps. He pales a bit and stops in his tracks, his face showing fear on it. "Jono…" He whispers before recovering ever so slightly, enough to be anger, and yells. Not caring if he looks like an idiot to the people passing by in the streets. "He did not love it!"
Rashmi starts at the mind-voice, head snapping upward to fix her gaze on Jono. One hand rests on Robyn's shoulder, as she moves to put herself in front of the black-clad teen. "That's a lie, Jono," she says quietly. "You know it is… Otherwise you wouldn't be telling us, right?" She looks down for a moment, steeling her nerves, before returning her gaze to the Brit. "…I'm glad you're okay, though…. sort of, I guess. I was worried you'd died last night." Yes, the redhead is terrified, and yes, it's plain to see, but stubborn determination, as it usually manages, wins out in this moment.
"well that's different," Felix murmurs to himself. "Someone in New York freaking out in a public place at random."
He sizes up the yelling man… student aged, accompanied by hawt babe except for the red hair. Several people staring at him, good work distraction man! The mostly human vaguely pumaish fellow starts moving, crumpling the now-empty chai tea cup and tossing it in a general … ohrowlfft, she's looking this way. Well, that's … Oh! Felix looks back and up. OH. Creepy dude sitting on top of wall? How did he get there without me noticing?
In the moment, Felix's mark slips into a bookstore and out of reach.
«Oh yes he did.» James did love it. Or at least part of him did. And with that Jonothon shows you what James felt. The sensations of what it is to be James floods into thoughts.. all the scents, all the sounds, and that beast laying within him. The one who craves the taste of blood. The part of James that thrilled in the attacking. There was a strange clarity at that moment for James, and the teen attacked. Jono did nothing to stop it and had his chest torn open.
After that though, Jono stops it. He doesn't share the fact that James agonized in the aftermath. That he was horrified with what he'd done. No, people only get to see the bad parts. «He loved it, and I let him.» After the taunting, Jono's gaze settles on Felix. Brown eyes flare to red and orange. Hello.
Robyn tries using what Addison taught him to protect his mind but the problem is he's just too green and it doesn't work. Instead he gets what Jono projects and he still doesn't believe it, more he doesn't want to. "STOP IT! THIS ISN'T YOU! THAT ISN'T HIM!" He yells holding the sides of his head, he wants Jono back, he wants his friends to be fine.
Rashmi hunches over, turning into Robyn as the borrowed, edited memories overrun her mind, erasing all awareness of anything else, until the 'show' nears its end. "*Stop* this, Jono," she whispers, hanging onto Robyn's sweatshirt to keep herself steady. "Please, just *stop it…* You're his *hero,* Jono…. why would you *do* this to him??"
Oh, great, the creepily sneaky guy is looking at me and what the hell was that with the eyes?
Felix degree-shifts ever so slightly, teeth getting a touch sharper, already odd-looking nails going to full-on claws, as a reflex. Of course that might not be obvious to anyone else, with his hands curled closed. Since he's being explicitly noticed he returns a curious and slightly challenging stare through his amber-tinted sunglasses. And what are those two going on about anyway. Creepy eyes hasn't said a word here.
Brows arch, for this is him. How could there be anything else. «I don't alter minds, luv, I just hear them.» Which isn't entirely true, but he didn't alter James' mind at all, just linked with it. «I'm no hero. Never have been. He needs to see that.» Their pleas are certainly falling on deaf ears. Felix though, has a grin pulling into place. Psy-fire appears around the Brit, making an eerie, and inappropriate, halo. The wall which Felix was leaning against suddenly moves. It seeks to grab the teen and pin him against the hard surface. "And look, here's another toy." Said out loud so that everyone can join in finally.
"You are a hero Jono! You're not just to James but to me as well!" Robyn admits as he has kind of a 'teacher worship' for Jono. Things are getting to be too much for him and when Jono grabs Felix Robyn panics, what the hell can he do? "STOP IT JONO! Leave him alone! He's not a toy, he's another person like you, like me, like Rashmi! If you want to fight someone so badly, fight us! Not him." It's the only way he can think to protect an innocent, in his opinion.
As Jono makes his move against the stranger, Rashmi's eyes narrow. "Robyn's right, *Jono.*" She'd heard of his new preference for a name, and quite pointedly refuses to use it. "You used to help a lot of us work through our problems, remember? When Lucas and Jordan were taken by the demons… You helped Robyn and I through it… You mean *so much* to so many kids… Please, Jono… let him go, okay? You don't want to do this…"
Felix tries to leap away from the suddenly unnaturally moving wall like it was some kind of a snake. Unfortunately like some kind of snake, it successfully latches onto him. Rowwrfffft. He flips a rude digit at Jono and vanishes, then reappears on top of a nearby lamppost, rubber soles of one shoe slipping a bit until it find a purchase on an attached "No climbing, skateboarding, skating, loitering, smoking, and curb your dog you disgusting lout" sign. OK, the disgusting lout part is Felix's usual editorial insertion.
He directs a glare Jonothon-wards. "What the hell man, I ain't nobody's toy." (This may or may not be true.) "Who are you and who pissed in your corn flakes and it wasn't me." (Yet.)
As the two insist that he's something other than what he believes, Jonothon slides off the wall after Felix disappears and floats gently down to the sidewalk, wrapped in his psy-fire. In being closer it's clear that the man looks awful. Dark bags beneath his eyes, and he's lost weight. So very tired. "We're all toys, mate." A pointed glance back to the Xaviers students. "You lot just can't seem to grasp the facts. The man you knew is gone. I may wear his face, but he moved out. This is who I am now. Jon, not Jono. Your hero never existed." A pitying look as he shakes his head.
Robyn stands where he is and reaches a hand out to grab Rashmi, and she can tell he's shaking. "I refuse to believe Jono is gone." Robyn says, because admiting Jono is gone is admitting Jordan is gone, and he's not ready to do that. "You're not Jon, your Jono, and that hero did exsits. He existed to me and Rashmi and James and a lot of other kids. What did Mr. Sinister do to you?" The last is a rhetorical question but there is a lot of emotion behind it. A lot of fear and sadness.
Rashmi bites her bottom lip as Jono floats down, glancing up at the lamppost, eyebrows rising in a silent 'You okay?' query. Looking back to their fire-shrouded ex-teacher, her face becomes a study in horror and concern. "If he's gone, *Jono,* then… why d'you look like this…? Like you're trying to fight it… It's not that we can't grasp it… we just don't want to. We can't give up on you… or Jordan, or any of the others. We can't… we won't give up that hope. Not now… not ever."
The guy climbing/loitering on the lamppost smiles at the distraction. Felix vanishes again, appearing suddenly behind the psi-firey fellow (which looks damn weird thank you very much, but it doesn't FEEL hot, right?) and taps him on the shoulder, then vanishes. So does Jono's tee-shirt, which was hooked by a claw. Of course the horrors thus revealed are probably rather more so than Felix intended; he only expected to expose pasty sun-forgotten skin. His near-instantaneous reappearance 20 feet away COULD go unnoticed by the others…
Jonothon continues shaking his head at Robyn and Rashmi, all but ignoring Felix. "He set me free." Seems sincere as well. "Removed the fear that trapped me." There's a blink for why he looks this way, and he spreads his arms, "Who wouldn't want to be a handsome chap?" Asked with a grin, for he is quite handsome. "Your loss then, luv." Not giving up. It's as those arms are lowering that Felix acts. It's not even the losing of his shirt that Jono has issue with, but the physical contact. «GRAH!» A powerful, negative wave of emotion washes out around him. Accompanying this is a push of Psy-fire. Strong enough to knock people over, to bruise, to crack the pavement beneath his own feet.
Eyes blazing, the man whirls around to focus on Felix. The aura of psy-fire is large now - a crackling, living thing that is very, very angry. Yes, there is an empty place, filled with fire, where his chest should be. A shrug reforms the shirt from the air. A haze that quickly darkens to reproduce what he lost. "Better run, little twat." Low and warning.
Huh? Hmm? Bad player. No biscuit.
Being close to Jono, Robyn is knocked back on his rear from the push of Psy-fire, and it hurts. Nothing he can't deal with later though, at least nothing is physically broken. "You're not free, your trapped into doing stuff that isn't you!" He says scrambling to get back to his feet and offering Rashmi a hand up if needed. "I'm sorry Jono." Robyn says quietly as a psi-dagger forms in his hand and he rushes forward to try to stab him with his mental energy. Hoping it can do something, for if it makes contact it'll be like a mental push attack on Jono's mind.
Rashmi accepts the hand, stumbling to her feet and wincing as she rubs a bruised shoulder. "Jono!" she calls, as a half-dozen spheres fade into being, whirling around her at top speed. "Wake…. UP!" At that, one of the spheres separates from the pack, arcing over Robyn's left side to streak toward the Brit's ribs… rather, where ribs would be on anyone else.
Felix is, initially, smug. Successful warning. Also, totally keeping this teeshirt. And besides, the context of the conversation has finally gotten through his selfish-world filters. This guy was CHANGED to be like this? Hell. This is not someone to fight, this is someone to have a beer with and commiserate. Or maybe not. It sounds like he's HAPPY with being the plaything of some… wait, "sinister" … of all the lame names.
Then he hears the warning. Normally the expression Felix would prefer to adopt before vanishing would be a "grin"… but this is more of a "terror and run away" expression. OK, for the future? Do not taunt live dragons. He disappears. Well, mostly. His sunglasses are still there.
Not paying any mind to the Xavier teens at this moment, that sphere hits Jono just as Rashmi wants. It hits and bones crack audibly. Staggered, Jonothon manages to catch himself from falling, but just barely. Tendrils of fire steady the man.. just in time for that blade to hit. The reaction is immediate. Jono blasts. Let us hope that Robyn isn't in that blast, for it will do far more than hospitalize him. The pavement disintegrates as that beam of fire lances out, digging into the earth. It pushes out and down, leaving a fairly large line and hole. Bits of pavement also go flying in all directions. The Brit drops down to hands and knees in the aftermath, dazed.
The blast /just/ misses Robyn, but barely. And needless to say the close call has him shaking with fear. He notices that Jono is dazed for a split second before that pavement that goes flying everywhere, well he can't dodge that. A few of the smaller chunks hit him leaving somes scrapes and bruises and larger one hits him in the side causing him to be knocked aside and some possible cracking of ribs. "Jono…please…stop this.." He manages to get out in between gasps of breath.
Rashmi darts forward to help Robyn up. "Come on… let's get out of here," she murmurs into the boy's ear. "We'll go someplace else, have a coffee or something… then come back… Just…" She glances at Jono's dazed, kneeling form, shaking her head. "We need to leave."
The sunglasses disappear. Between the injured boy and the girl with the flying ghosts of bowling balls, Felix reappears, and reaches to grab for both. Too heavy to carry both at once, so he shifts to a more mid-phase - half-puma half-human look - and says, "Hold on tight, I have some questions," and when he has both in a solid grip, he disappears. They reappear … across town. On the roof of a building in Mutant Town overlooking a coffee shop.
Blood drips down to the ground beneath Jonothon, but he's entirely unmindful of it. There is no gasping for air, no strangled sounds, for all there should be. Mainly because he's lost all of his chest. Including most of his jaw. It's the kind of wound that should kill a man, yet he flounders to try and climb to his feet. Not doing all that well either. «…» His pain radiates out at those near, and his coordination is quite lacking. Not even noticing teens disappear, the man drops to his knees and screams out his pain. It's a mental call and it goes for miles. Knocks people out who are close, and drops the mood of a good portion of the city horribly. Jono, not Jon, gives voice to everything going on in his mind. Not necessarily a good thing.
It's a weird sensation, one second your in pain on a street of torn pavement and the next minute your in pain in Mutant Town, on a roof. "Rashmi…I'm sorry." He says since he was the one who dragged her out. "You're…not hurt, are you?" After all from point blank range it seemed like that pavement went everywhere. He doesn't know if she got hit at all. He looks up a Felix and stays sitting on the ground. "Thanks."
A few bruises, a cut on the cheek from a particularly speedy piece of shrapnel, but the redhead seems to have her mind on more pressing matters. "I'm fine… um… where are we?" Raising her head to look around at her surroundings, Rashmi orients on Felix, looking far more puzzled than frightened, at the sight of a werepuma in ill-fitting sunglasses. "…You did this, right?"
<OOC>(Wall street plunged 20 points today as traders suddenly and unaccountably had massive simultaneous migraine attacks. After a good crying jag, the market recovered to close up 3 points. SEC authorities have requested government investigation for possible terrorist involvement.)
Felix's ears go flat for a moment and he growls at whatever that surge of misery was that just kicked through his brain.
He growls, "Did what? I got you here, explosion man did everything else."
He winces, rubbing his head, and then shifts back to nearly-human again. "Who WAS that guy and how far do I need to run so he won't be coming after me?"
Once done with screaming, Jo
nothon activates his teleporter and vanishes from the scene. He's done quite enough damage for the day! Time to go put himself back together. Somehow. It's growing more and more difficult the further he pushes himself.
Looking at Rashmi, Robyn just nods. "He can't be gone right? Jono's still Jono?" Yes he's worried. As Felix talks he just shrugs at him. "I don't know, I don't know what's going on or if he'll come after you or not still. That guy…" Robyn looks away, gazing at nothing off the roof. "He's a friend of ours. A friend of ours going throught a rough time." To say the least.
Rashmi nods slowly, settling to the ground next to Robyn. "Someone took him… did something to him. I don't know what, or why… just… He's not acting like himself anymore. Whatever was done… it changed him. His mind. I don't know how much danger *you're* in, honestly… I guess it depends… on how far gone he is, you know? Um… thanks for getting us out of there… who are you, again?"
Felix crosses his arms, head tilted in a "no kidding" attitude as his gold-colored eyes peer over the sunglesses that have slipped down his nose.
"Took him huh? That would be this 'sinister' you were all talking about? And why does he have such a completely cornball name? And what kind of 'rough time' justifies treating random strangers like they were toys?"
Nevermind that Felix takes a similar attitude towards his 'donors' … this is all about him not liking the treatment. Entirely a different matter.
"You're welcome. Call me Cheshire." Because that's not an obvious name at all.
Robyn looks at Cheshire and gives a confused look. "Like Alice in Wonderland?" Or course he's familiar with it. It's filled with strangeness. He kind of has that kicked puppy look about him at the moment. "It's a rough time when someone messes with you and turns you into someone else. I really don't know Cheshire, but I'm worried." Really worried. "I want to know what's going on with the others too!" He kind of whines like a little kid.
Rashmi loops an arm around Robyn's shoulders, hugging gently. "Yeah…. Mr. Sinister, I guess he's called. …We don't know all that much, but… I guess he's like a mutant mad scientist. Likes to play with mutant DNA kind of thing… messes with their heads, so they do things they'd never do otherwise, you know?" Letting out a heavy sigh, she pulls Robyn closer, closing her eyes. "All we really know is, he's taken a bunch of our friends… And Jono's been hurting a lot of people who used to really look up to him."
Felix says in a semi-reflective, semi-bitter tone, "Yeah, it really does suck. Sometimes you can come out of it OK. Sometimes you don't."
Voice of experience, Felix? Why yes, but the Medium-Low Evolutionary was nowhere NEAR as creeptastic as this guy sounds. Well, OK, creeptastic in a completely different way.
"Glad I'm not a mutant then. (I think.) Look, I'd love to stay and bandage you both up and stuff, but I need to feed the cat. Got any specific public place in mind that you'd like me to take you? That I've been to and can take you to? Otherwise, I'll drop you off at the Bean Beat there. I recommend the double-cream latte."
Robyn shakes his head. "I think we should just go back to the school, tell my parents I couldn't get away." Or couldn't get into Brooklyn since they were probably effected by Jono's emotional scream. After all he was only a few blocks from home. "I should see a doctor anyway." Robyn says as those chunks of pavement hurt when they hit. "Cheshire…um…can I leave you with my number, incase you see him again?"
Rashmi sighs quietly, nodding in
agreement with Robyn. "We're probably in enough trouble as it is," she mutters, trying to keep from wincing at her classmate's talk of phone numbers. "So… I guess the nearest subway stop would do… Seriously, thanks again, Cheshire. You… probably saved our lives today."
A cheshire-cat-like grin is aimed at the two students, and Felix says, "Hey, lives saved, bonus. And sure, I'll take the number. Can't say I'll have a phone with me at any given time, but if I do see him, and I'm not being blasted into tiny glowing bits, I'll let you know."
He shifts far enough back to AnthroPuma to have a tail and to have fur, so he can carry the two along with him without straining. His glasses slip down again. Darnit.
