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Summary: Tabitha, under the influence of Mindbender, tries bank robbery. Taskmaster, Ashley, Jem, and Theo intervene.
Date: June 20, 2011
Log Title: Welcome to Hell
Rating: R
NYC - Hell's Kitchen
The rough neighborhood in Midtown West New York known as Hell's Kitchen almost has a darker tone to it. Once you step into this neighborhood the city takes on a different feel, the buildings are shorter but everything feels darker. There is real grit to this part of town where many of the New York City criminals see to make their home.
Taskmaster is no stranger to Hell's Kitchen, and Hell's Kitchen is no stranger to him. The criminal element knows him in his Tony Masters guise, which is why he can walk around the street with the sun so close to setting without fear. Nobody has the guts to challenge him save the Devil himself. Tony Masters is a roguish good looking man, dressed all business casual in jeans a black turtleneck and a sport jacket. He's got business to attend to, which is why he's strolling down the street at a brisk pace.
It had been a little bit of a long run since Jem ran past Ashley, closely followed by a group of local guys that hang out in a gang together. Now.. what Jem is doing in a bad part of New York like this is really beyond anyone's idea. However, those guys don't seem too friendly, and they don't seem to have good intentions on the fleeing blond. The thing about it is, Jem doesn't really look afraid so much as annoyed, currently she has a paper towel and seems to be drying off her hands or something. Or at least wiping them off as she runs. This could spell trouble if they were to catch her. She hasn't noticed Ashley just yet, but these guys don't look too devoted to their cause. Likely if the girl showed them a little fire, they'd have backed off. So why hasn't she. "You guys are totally barking up the wrong tree. I'm not who you think I am, so just piss off." she frowns, rounding the corner toward the bank.
Imagine Ashley's surprise when he noticed the very girl he had headed into the city to avoid, jogging down the street towards him. He'd yet to find a single sports store in his blocks of walking and referring to an outdated tourist guide for help, and here she is, probably tracking him down to harass him even further.
So imagine Ash's surprise as Jem continued jogging right past; granted, he ducked behind the wall of a convenient bus stop, but still. Then a gang of unruly looking youths follow in close pursuit behind the running blonde. A sight that brings Ash pause for a moment as he watches the group disappear around a corner. A moment, and then the youth gives chase as well, taking off down the sidewalk, dodging between pedestrians and the like, white earbuds bouncing over his shoulder where they fell from his ears.
Whereas a good student would hit the panic button on his Xavier's-provided cell phone… Ash isn't exactly a good student right now. But what he is, is a decent football player, so he charges after the mob of youths chasing after Jem, breaking into the bike lane to gain ground. Once he reaches the lead ganger, the firebug shouts for their attention "Hey, idiots! She said piss off!" Alright, so it's not the best line, but it gets their attention just in time for Ash to thrust out a hand, and send a burst of flames in front of the leader's face. Nothing too serious, a little bit more impressive than the 'close your hand over a bic lighter and ignite it,' but something enough to give the gangers room to pause; chasing after a blonde is one thing, but chasing after a blonde with a pyro mutie chasing after them? Nuh-uh. With a short and a scramble, the gang breaks off, heading in any direction but Jem's, allowing Ashley to continue on to catch up to her.
This isn't Theo's favorite ATM. It's dangerous, and he has a car that might as well paint a big "rob me" sign on the back of it. It would have been good if he had brought Proto along, however, in the process of upgrading the little bot, there have been some AI quirks he'd like to work out before taking the creation into a rough neighborhood like Hell's Kitchen.
Theo has been having nothing to do with people being chased, he's just walking cautiously from the other side of the bank, approaching the ATM. Why this ATM? Well, because he knows that there is only the one camera present looking at this particular teller, and he can stop that easily enough, with plenty of focus to take out a withdrawal of whatever size he desires from the machine. He hears the commotion from around the bank corner, and pauses, listening and watching the street until he spots the action come into sight. "Oh jeez," he growls, and starts backpedaling away from the commotion.
In Hell's Kitchen, there is drama a-plenty, which isn't unusual for this part of town. The sound of a motorcycle tearing up the street certainly isn't abnormal, either; as is happening now. A rider on a beefy Harley Davidson nigh annihilates the pavement as she pushes her bike hard, cruising down the street towards the very bank that Jem is closing in on. The rider, one distinct looking Rat Girl, clenches her hands tight around the handlebars, and grits her teeth, charging on the bike straight for the windows of the bank. As she gets near, not less than six glowing spheres appear in front of her, and with a resounding cataclysm smash the windows and part of the bank's front wall, clearing the way for Tabitha to drive straight in. She turns the bike sideways and skids to a halt, amid the sound of screeching tires and screaming bank patrons and tellers.
The gangers harassing the blonde girl (who clearly is out of her element here) doesn't make Taskmaster blink an eye. Hell, even the other blonde kid who lights his hand on fire only causes him to roll his eyes. It's when a biker right drives right in front of him to smash through the window of the bank that's a few feet in front of him, sending shards of glass flying his way, does he bother to react. A rough, "Oh, hell!" escapes the man, and the image of Tony Masters flickers as the holoprojector tries and fails to keep up with the interference that it causes, leaving the world to see the reality beneath the illusion: Taskmaster. He's not in his training outfit, the gaudy one with the cape and skeletor mask. That's for high profile work. Today he's wearing his mercenary's garb, a black utilitarian suit with a web belt filled with gadgets and a highly stylized skull mask. "Well. That's just great," he says, sounding more annoyed than anything else, and starts to pick pieces of glass out of his suit.
Jem is wet, that is the problem. Her hands have the slightest bit of water still on them, and she was in the process of drying them off when she got aggressed by those guys who were no doubt after her money. Sure, she could have shot flame from her hair or her eyes or her hair or feet or wherever, however, she is very very mindful when it comes to water, and tends not to risk it even if only part of her is wet. She was almost there just before Ashley drove the guys off, which gets Jem to stop running and turn to face him, brow arching. "Ash? What are you doing here?" Jem says casually, as if her life wasn't even in danger moments ago. "Were you rushing to my rescue?" the girl smirks, "Aww, no need to be my hero. I'm a big girl you know." she starts in his direction, "But there is something you can help me out with though. I need a light." Jem holds up her hands a little, displaying them. She even goes so far as to reach out to take hold of Ash's, putting hers in his.
"Better than blow drying after all. But don't think this'll let you out of our little bet." Jem actually gets closer to him, stepping into that little personal space of his that he seems to like to protect she see seems to enjoy breaking into. But speaking of breaking into, that is when things take an interesting turn, the commotion of something crashing through the bank window grabs Jem's attention. "What the hell?" blond brows goes up.
Coming to a skidding stop as Jem turns around, Ash even hops a couple of steps to kill his speed, snorting as he does so. "Yeah, let you go get into a fight with a bunch of gangers, and get chewed out by Frost and Summers for not helping…" or rather, not hitting the panic button like he's supposed to. But whatever, the girl is slowly getting on his nerves, one way or another. And she's always in his space, too!
As Jem slides right back into his personal space, popping that nice little bubble he's been trying to keep up lately, Ash's brows furrow slightly. "I wasn't trying to get out of the bet, and what do I look like, your hair dryer?" he retorts, just as she grabs his hands….
And the biker rat from.. wherever Tabitha is from turns that bank into a drive thru, whipping Ash's head around, "A car wreck?" is his first guess as he looks for the chaos, eyes tracking towards the sound of screaming and all that stuff.
Fan-freaking-tastic. The dark-eyed teen ducks behind a pillar as the glass shatters in the front of the bank. "Yeah, that probably wasn't a good idea," he grumbles. He recognizes Tabitha though. Hard not to remember a girl who looks like a rat, even if you only met her once. Theo seems rather unaffected by Taskmaster's image change, after all, he knew it was there to begin with. Between gang bangers, biker mice, and He-Man copycats, this average looking, and average strength teen does anything but stand out in the crowd. Which is just fine by him, he doesn't really want a piece of this action.
A wreck? No, it becomes apparent fairly quickly that this is not any such thing. "Get the fuck out!" Tabitha snarls, as she jumps off the bike and advances into the bank. The six spheres go to work around her, smashing countertops and computers, splintering doors off their hingers, and bowling an armed guard head over heels. Several people run screaming out of the bank, and in the street outside mose people are doing likewise, especially after a busrt of gunfire is heard from within the bank. "Screw you too, zombie!" shouts the rat, after ducking and rolling to avoid bullets that then fly out into the street, peppering the side of the building near Jem and Ashley. The Rat's spheres make short work of that guard, as well; leaving him groaning and sputtering on the ground, while the Rat goes to retrieve his weapon.
Taskmaster doesn't act at first. He stands there watching the mutant and her spheres pummel the guy through the broken window of the bank. He watches intently how she moves, the way that she rolls to dodge the bullets (which he casually steps aside so they don't hit him, too). Once he's seen enough, the people close to him can hear him mumble to himself, "I can't believe I'm doing this.." before calmly stepping over threshold. "Hey, you! Rat-girl!" he calls out to the robber. "I'm gonna give you one chance to stand down and give yourself up."
Grump as Ash might, Jem is there, and as she has show him, there isn't much Ash can do to avoid her once she sets her mind to things. Such as not really staying out of trouble. If he saved her once, then that means his obligated to keeping up with the task, right? Car wreck indeed. Jem is going to go find out, and as she wipes her hands against her shirt, abandoning the idea of Ashley drying them off for her, Jem suddenly turns on her heels and rushes off toward the sounds of breaking and the like. Shortly after that, there are sounds of gunfire which ring out, and they still don't stop Jem from proceeding. She only stops for a second when the bullets rain into the building, and then she is on to investigate. "Something's up!" she calls and then moves to take a peek inside, catching sight of the rat and the attempt at robbery, "No way! Is this a bank robbery" she arches a brow.
Well, at least she didn't wipe her hands on HIS shirt. With one of those 'long-suffering sighs' that you hear about, Ash moves to follow Jem as he digs around in his pocket for that phone he's always forgetting about. As gunfire sprays into the building, sprinkling chips of brick and mortar over his shoulders, a look of concern blossoming on his features. Hey, there's the phone!
As Jem moves to peak in, Ash hisses at her slightly, "What the hell! Are you looking to get shot?" as he's dialing 911. And ends up on hold, "…seriously?" he stares at the phone, and then at Jem, "…we should probably get out of here. Staff'll have our asses!"
Theo scans the bank, and finds exactly what he is looking for. "Well, nobody can say I didn't do anything, or better yet, they'll think I didn't," he mutters. The alarm is tripped, and 911 is dialed from the bank phone. As for physically? Theo doesn't have a whole lot to bring to the fight, so he just stays put, watching from behind the drive through support pillar.
The rat girl's attention piques, and she turns to face towards the various people closing in on her; most notably Taskmaster, as he's the closest. Her eyes narrow, and she levels her purloined pistol at the man, giving a hard-eyed stare down the sights. "Shut up," she sneers. "You're just like the rest. Trying to drag the entire world down into this hell you've turned it into, just like my father, just like the others. *I* am trying to save it. So stay out of my way!" She pulls the trigger, and fires a shot over Taskmaster's head. After the loud report, she turns to walk away, moving deeper into the now deserted bank; and there it is. The vault, automatically closed when the assault began. The six glowing spheres muster, and one after the other they pound into the reinforced door. Loud crashes reverberate through the bank, impact after impact, again and again. Unfortunately for Tabitha, it's fairly clear that this is going to take some time, using this method.
Taskmaster doesn't even flinch as he's shot at by the girl. "What the /hell/ are you talking about?" he asks, voice utterly flabbergasted. "I know I could be a little long winded, but at least /my/ monologues made sense." With a smooth action, he pulls out one of his .45 automatics, and causally aims at the back of the girl's head. It would be so easy to end it this way. He tsks to himself and quickly switches out rounds from the hollow points to the teflon coated AP rounds, and fires six shots in succession, each one unerringly hitting each of the six orbs that are hammering the vault door. "I swear," he says under his breath, "How do the Avengers DO this?" Louder, "I said, STOP!"
"What's wrong? Are you scared? Go ahead and run home if you want to, I'm checking things out." Jem tells Ash on her way to peek around the corner. She catches sight of the struggle that seems to be going on, and she wrinkles her nose, "Someone's trying to break into the bank.." she reports back to Ash, because she just knows he isn't going anywhere. The girl is shifting her eyes around, looking for something, anything that could give her an edge. "I think.. I'm gonna try to help." she says, "With me?" Jem looks over her shoulder at the dark haired boy, working with his phone. "Could really be a chance to heat things up." There is something within her eyes, an ignition of light, or a sparkle that seems to grin at the possibility of danger, and she is inviting him to ride along with her. "Unless you're afraid of this too.." Going back to the ribbing she gave him about their bet.
Oh no she didn't! Ash scowls at Jem's back as she teases him with running back to the School, brow furrowing. And with his phone pretty much useless; stupid hold times! What the deuce! - he snorts and shoves it back into his pocket. Well, if there's the two of them, then he'll only catch half of it from staff once they get back.
Ash slinks along the wall, up to where Jem peeks around the corner; she gets another one of those suffering looks when she glances back, but the hoodie-lovin' youth nods, "Fine, whatcha got in mind?" he asks. Knowing their powersets, the general idea is pretty apparent, but there are those finer details to work out…
The rat's energy spheres get jostled and blasted about by the bullet impacts, and one of them explodes in a bright display of fireworks. As it does, Tabitha screams, dropping the pistol she was carrying and collapsing to one knee. The other five spheres all wink out of existence, as she clutches at her head, almost as if tryign to prevent her cranium from splitting apart. "That… shit… shit…" she gasps, clenching her eyes shut and doubling over. "Bastard. You… you bastard." The rat girl turns, snatching the pistol back up off the floor as she moves. She's still in a crouch by the time she's facing towards Taskmaster once more. She grits her teeth, and then against the searing pain in her head she's in motion, tearing across the bank floor and opening fire as she comes. She fires the remaining seven bullets in her magazine around Taskmaster's legs; when the slide locks open after the last shell is spent, she tosses the weapon aside, and launchers herself into an aggressive, flying kick at the reluctant hero.
The results of his shots actually take Taskmaster by surprise. He never expected the kind of feedback that happened after he cracked open one of those spheres. He doesn't get much time to bask in the unexpected success as the rat girl starts shooting at him. Her shots are telegraphed way too easily and he's able to sidestep them without much problem. When the gun is thrown at him, he catches it deftly, and is nearly caught full on by the flying kick, and manages to twist out of the brunt of it, causing him to drop the half loaded .45. "You're fast, girl," he says with a certain amount of appreciation in his voice. "and I'm off my game. Ya caught me by surprise this once. I ain't gonna let that happen again." And this is where the rubber meets the road. He takes a swing at Tabatha, using the blunt end of the caught gun as a bludgeon, but really this is a feint to get her moving in one direction… a direction that will end at the bad end of an armored knee.
With the increase in bullets flying, Theo finds himself in a situation he most definitely wants to escape. The technopath winces as the crack of the bullets can be heard from within the bank. He's called the police, at this point, it's someone else's problem. Finding the opening, the teen takes off down the street, eager to put as much distance as possible between him and the fight.
Jem is making a quick assessment of just who might be who. Thought it is pretty obvious who is the antagonist in this situation. "Hrm. Okay.. count of three. Flames on the chick trying to bust into the bank." Jem narrows her eyes in thought, shifting from one foot to the other. Hey, if she's gonna jump into danger, it is better to have a partner in crime. Or crime fighting in this case. And it just so happens that Ash is a bit of an easy target to goad, so far. So with a brush of her hand back through golden curls, she gets ready, her fingers laying at her side, flicking back and forth as plasma starts to trickle and flare between them.
"One… two… THREE!" She counts off and then jumps out from around her peeking corner, eyes focusing upon the rodent girl firing off the spheres. From her fingers and the center of her palm jump out a blue blazing plasma and bright hot flames, streaking in a steady spiral towards their target, a rather focused look on Jem's face.
Not that Ash ever actually looked around the corner to see what was going on, as he stuck to the wall. Some big strong guy he is, letting the girl do all the work. Well, she's the one with the ideas of grandeur, and he's the easily goaded one. "Roast the chick, okay…" Ash repeats, although not very convincingly. He's never voluntarily used his powers against someone before. Well, not against someone who is actually combustible.
Ash leaps out, although he does so more on three-and-a-half than three, coming up next to Jem, his arms coming up as well. His is more of the underhanded stance, his own twin columns of burnination catching the floor before moving to the horizontal, sweeping up towards Tabitha and Taskmaster from below, as opposed to Jem's straight on.
The rat girl doesn't move to avoid the initial strike with the empty pistol; rather she raises her hand to blod with her forearm, and directs a swift punch at her opponent's solar plexus with her other hand. She's still caught by the knee striking her hip, but having to go that much further robs the attack of some of its strength. Still, she grunts with the impact, and staggers back a step. Her ears twitch in time to Jem and Ash's conversation, and she backs off another step from Taskmaster as she looks over her shoulder at the Xaviers students; and just then, she's caught in the crossfire, as it were. A mass of plasma and flames engulf her, and for a time she disappears from view entirely. When the flames finally die down… Tabitha is still standing there. Her clothes are singed and smolder in places, wisps of smoke wafting off of her; but aside from her clothes, not so much as a hair on her head seems to be burnt. "Monsters," she snaps. "Who did you steal those powers from? …Doesn't matter. Now they're mine." She turns sideways, and broken glass crunches underfoot as she leaves the bank.
As Tabitha's feet touch the pavement, she in engulfed once more in a wreath of flames; but this time they do not come from Jem or Ashley. Engulfed in plasma, she rises upwards, hovering several feet off the ground. Five spheres appear in the air around her, circling her in separate orbits. "Now," comes her voice from the inferno, "Get lost."
Taskmaster twists expertly, to avoid Tabitha's punch, and wheels around to strike her again, only to stop short as he uses that momentum to throw himself out of the path of the plasma and fire. "JESUS!" he yells, just barely managing to keep himself from being engulfed along with the rat-girl. "I'm on your side you fucking amateurs!" He quickly raises to his feet from his low crouch to chide the two teenagers even more. "And I wanted her fucking alive, not burnt to a …." he stops as Tabitha looks not only unharmed, but blazing as well. "… Oh hell." As if to add insult to injury that's just when the fire sensors trip from the searing heat of the rat-girl, showering the bank with water alongside loud claxons.
Well, this is something unexpected. Sure their streams of fire were a little impulsive, and Taskmaster just happened to almost get smacked along with her, "Whoops sorry dude!" she calls out while she focuses on taking out the rat girl. Got her! Jem smirks as Tabitha is smacked with the wash of flames. Though something doesn't seem right after a while, Jem's eyes widen slightly as she notices that the intended target wasn't taken down by her attack. "What? No way!" A blink from the blond girl, and she finds herself having to prepare for another attack, her attack coming from another source. Which activates the sprinkler system apparently, causing Jem to cut her focus on her flame and leap back away from the entrance, possibly into Ashley. "Shit!"
Ahah! Someplace with sprinklers. Although Ash is a bit gobstopped as Tabitha doesn't necessarily react the way he expected. Most people scream and run when flames leap out at them. As Jem leaps backwards from the water, she does indeed collide with Ash, knocking him off his balance, his own flames going from hissing and spitting in the sprinkler to dying away when his control is broken.
Then Tabitha is floating with a protective shield of fireballs, and Ash hisses a bit, maybe in jealous; he's just a flamethrower, after all. Everyone else gets the cool tricks. "Uhh, now what?" he calls sidelong to Jem, backing away from the water. He doesn't have quite a violent reaction, but he'd still rather not get wet.
The humanoid inferno that is Tabitha leisurely drifts back down to the ground, and the five spheres wink out of view, one after the other. "I have to get the transponder," she snarls, shifting her gaze between Taskmaster, Jem, and Ashley, one after the other. "Timeslip said so. I have to save the world. You don't understand. I'm the only one who can!" She gestures with both hands, pointing at vehicles and store fronts; cars and trucks and motorbikes explode as their fuel tanks rupture, and buildings ignite into blazing pyres. At least the area seems to have already been more or less deserted, as Hell's Kitchen abruptly lives up to the name.
The Rat Girl turns, and walks back into the bank; into the cascade of water, that hisses as it forms a cloud of scalding steam around her. It doesn't seem to cause her any undue distress; she simply walks through it, and raises her hands to point at the vault door. Instead of summoning her spheres, she unleashes a massive blast of flame; and even in the water, the cault door soon starts to glow under the assault.
Taskmaster answers Ash's question first: "Now you and you get your skanky girlfriend home where you can't accidentally hurt anybody… especially me." He turns to face the blazing inferno of a rat girl, his posture set and grim. "And I'm going to take care of this. One way or another." He clutches his fists and there's a slight spark coming from a rather large technological bracelets that he wears on his arms, blue energy coming to life. The energy on his left arm coalesces into a shape that looks, for all the world, to be a spitting image of Captain America's shield, all traced out in blue. This he expertly throws at Tabitha, hoping that her fire won't disrupt the energy too much and that the shield will catch her in the back of the head.
There is water in the bank. It is coming down rather hard, and Jem knows that if she gets wet, she'll be utterly useless. What's more, vehicles are starting to explode next to the pair of them, causing the blond girl to cringe at the shockwave of a boom that washes over her. The situation is becoming much more than she, and as far as she knows, Ashley can handle. "C'mon.. c'mon!" she shouts to Ashley as she reaches out to yank his hand for a second, turning on her heels and starting to flee from the area. The girl is beating feet. Making a hasty retreat, hoping Ash will follow.
"Awww, no fair…" Ash mutters to himself, even as the whole block starts going up in explosions and flame. If he went in there, he'd be practically useless. Certainly not still at the level to blow up parked cars, that's for sure. Taskmaster's comment at this point would probably bring a bit of a glare and an upthrust middle finger, if it wasn't for Jem latching onto his hand and yanking his arm around, setting him spinning about and scrambling to follow as she drags him along. Yeah, running away is probably the smart idea at this point.
The spinning forcefield cuts through the cascade of water, careening straight for the Rat Girl's head. Tabitha's ears prick up, and she whirls in time to see it coming; she even twists, moving to lean backwards and let it pass over her. She almost manages it; but the disk collides with her forehead with a solid, palpable thump. The inferno about her body goes out, leaving the rat girl as she was before, abruptly sprawled on her back amidst the puddling water. She lies there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling. Slowly, her hand rises to her forehead. She groans loudly, and rolls onto her side. She clutches at her head, as gasping and grunting, she struggles to get back to her feet… or at least to her knees.
The blue shield bounces off a wall, after colliding with Tabitha, and comes spinning back to Taskmaster who catches it while running to get closer to the mutant. "You stay down, girl," he commands, the other wristband snapping to life, a long four foot blade appearing in his hand, the tip of the broadsword pointing at Tabitha's throat. "Yer lucky that you caught me in a time in my life when I'm tryin' to turn a new leaf, else I mighta just spared us a whole lotta trouble and taken yer head off."
Tabitha shakes her head slowly, as she manages to get to her knees, supported by her hands. "Can't… can't give up," she gasps, clutching her hand to her forehead. "Can't… fail. Can't… too many people… everyone needs me to save them." She coughs, and tries one more to stand; perhaps not that, quite yet. She grits her teeth, and glances at the motorbike she rode in on, still right where she left it. As she looks back to Taskmaster, finally she manages to rise, and stand. "Have to find Timeslip," she mutters. She straightens, and squares her back; and then five spheres burst into being, and one by one they streak through the air, splashing water out of the way as Tabitha tries to hammer Taskmaster with them one at a time.
…Of course, while she's at it, she's making a rather abrupt dive for her bike, in spite of the pain her cranium is experiencing.
When he notices the spheres coming back to life, Taskmaster is quick to lunge at the girl, the point of the sword sweeping down to stab at her calf. However he doesn't get time to do much else, before falling back on the defensive, dodging and weaving around what spheres he can't block or bat away with the shield. It's going to take a little more time to completely learn their pattern…. time that he doesn't have. Cursing, he decides to take a blow to the shoulder to give him the opportunity to throw the shield again, this time at the bike, and not the girl.
Tabitha dives for the bike… and flies straight over it, just as Taskmaster's energy blade connects with her boot, severing several of the leather straps around her calf. She lands none too gracefully on the other side of the harley, and skids across the slick floor. Behind her, Taskmaster's shield collides with the bike, smashing the engine into a shape it isn't meant to be in, but Tabitha is already in motion once more. She half staggers, half runs out of the bank; the water soaking her form leaves in a cloud of steam before she bursts into flames once more. She continues forwards on foot for a few steps, while her spheres catch up and enter their orbits around her once more. Then she's away; she rockets forwards and up, cruising over a building and dropping down again to use the skyline to cover her escape, leaving behind a good block and then some of city still on fire.
Taskmaster had counted on the girl to be more stunned than she was, not figuring her to be clever enough to use the motorcycle as a feint like she did. He catches the shield on the rebound as he chases after her, pulling out his other .45. He takes a few shots at the retreating mutant, but the soft hollow points that are loaded in it just vaporize before they can do any damage. "Dammit!" he yells as she finally gets out of range from anything he can do. "So. That's what it feels like," he mutters, watching the girl flee, after all, up until now, he'd always been on the fleeing end.
~ Fin ~
