xp_logs | Krypteia - In The Woods

Angelo tries to find the girls and is only successful in finding Tat - and Machado, the assassins' target. Karolina and Noriko get a hand from Callisto. And elsewhere, the X-Men interrupt their flight training to make like cavalry.

It had been well into twilight during Machado's speech, when the shooting had started. It was even darker under the trees, where most of the crowd had scattered. Visibility was not so good, and with civilians running around, screaming as they tried to find a way to escape the sudden explosion of violence, conditions for locating three relatively small girls were even worse.

Callisto had gone one way, and Angelo had taken the other, reasoning they'd have more odds of finding the girls that way. He was also yelling at the top of his voice, hoping to be heard over the screaming.

"TATIANA! NORIKO! KAROLINA!"

Tat's head snapped up from where she'd been trying to help up a girl who'd fallen - she was hysterical because of the blood on her face from where she'd hit the ground, and she knew she'd heard her name. More important, though, after that inital 2 seconds, was trying to calm the girl down. She pulled off her hoodie, and pressed the sleeve to the girl's head. "Are you going to be okay? She had to repeat it twice until she got a shaky nod, and then she stood up. There was so much going on that she didn't even know where to start -besides hoping that the bodies weren't anyone she knew. Pamphlets and little bits of the many giveaways littered the ground, trampled underfoot by the still-panicking public.

" - LINA! TATIANA! WHERE ARE YOU?"

Angelo came into view at that, pushing his way between the few people who hadn't already run past him.

Tat saw him, and her breath escaped in pure relief. She didn't even realise how she looked - her tank top and hands smeared with blood, one streak of it on her cheek where she'd rubbed her face. She jogged the last few steps, her heart pounding in her throat. "Have you seen Noriko and Karolina?" She was already looking over his shoulder, trying to spot either one of them. "They were right here-"

"No." He stepped closer, squinting through the twilight to look her over properly. "Callisto went the other way to look. When did you last see them? An' is any of that blood yours?"

Tat opened her mouth to answer him, then looked down, seeing her shirt and hands streaked with dulling red. "N-No?" No animals, right? Just the girl? Just- No rats. No cats, no birds- Just the girl. Tripped, cut on her head, Tat had helped her. There hadn't been anyone else. "No." Her breath was coming fast and hard, and she tried to wipe the sticky blood on her tank top just to get it off her hands. "They were behind me before I went to go look at-" She looked over at where the booth had been, but it mostly had just been knocked over. She sucked in another breath, and she looked back down at her hands again. "I- We should go look-" She looked back up at Angelo, her eyes wide.

Angelo gave her a harder look, concerned. "We'll look. But first I want you to calm down, okay? It's goin' to be okay now."

It wasn't the attack, and it wasn't the mobs, and it wasn't even that Noriko and Karolina could be some of the people who'd been hurt. It was the blood on her hands that was making her skin crawl, made her chest hurt, made her seize up.

"I'm fine, okay? We should go look." She hadn't lost that pinched look, and she kept wiping her hands on her shirt. Had there even been any animals here? She guessed that rats were everywhere - that much she knew, but she hadn't seen any seeing eye dogs or anything, so everything should be alright. Safe. Safe enough, anyway.

There was another long silent moment, then he nodded. "Okay. This way, you said?"

"Yeah. The last time I saw them, anyway." She bit her lip. "It was just like. Two minutes ago." It'd been about ten, but it wasn't like she'd timed it by her watch.

"Then they can't have gone far", Angelo said reassuringly. "We'll find them."

But who they did find, as they progressed carefully through the woods - the girl Tatiana had helped following them, clearly not willing to continue along - was a handful of the people who'd been up on the stage. Including Mariana Machado, who seemed to be arguing with the young man who'd pulled her away.

"-police will be here soon enough, and I cannot risk exposing these innocent people to any additional risk!" she was hissing at them. She spotted Angelo, her eyes widening slightly at the sight of the two clearly shocked girls trailing along in his wake. "You should head in the other direction, Mr. Espinosa," she said, and there was something distinctly iron-like in her voice. "Away from me, in any case."

"'fraid I can't", he said in a similar tone. "Tatiana here's one of my students an' I've lost the other two - Tat says they were this way. You haven't seen a Japanese girl or a blonde girl that looks like Leslie Dean anywhere, right?"

After a moment - clearly thinking about his question - Machado shook her head. "They haven't been here," she said simply. "You should leave us and look for them."

"I'm not exactly a civilian", he said, deliberately cryptic, then looked over his shoulder at the two girls. "But they are. Where are you goin' to go?"

"Mariana, going is a very good idea," said the young man in the suit urgently. But Machado shook her head.

"We will wait here, for the police," she said. "Moving around, attracting attention - I won't have it. Enough people have been hurt."

"They might well come back", Angelo said warningly. "Do any of you have defensive powers?"

Machado turned towards him swiftly, her expression almost imploring. "Mr. Espinosa... Angelo, please go. Take these girls, and get safely away. Find your other students."

Angelo met her eyes steadily. "If you don't have anyone here who can protect you, then come with us." He glanced at the young man in the suit, then back to her. "The world needs you, Ms. Machado. We've lost too many like you."

"Mariana, please," the young man said, picking up on Angelo's cue. "We have to stay on the move, at the very least - why not go together? On the move, in a group, in this light? They may not be able to find you again."

Machado looked torn. "I simply can't endanger-" It seemed to hit her that she was endangering them all by drawing out this conversation, and she let her breath out in a hiss through her teeth. "Quickly, then," she said, and then looked at Tatiana and the injured girl. "And you will stay well clear of me just in case, children."

Tatiana shook her head slightly, but then pursed her lips as she looked over at the other girl. She still didn't look well, and for all that Tat wanted to protest (mostly that she couldn't just have everyone stay away from her), it wasn't like she didn't have help. She didn't say anything, then, because it wasn't like she was going to agree and lie- but it wasn't like she was going to dog her every footstep, either.

"We'll manage," she said, not quite sure what else she could do.

"Okay", Angelo said on a relieved breath. "Tat, you stay close to me an' keep an eye on your friend there, if it looks like she's gettin' worse, tell me immediately. Let's go, everybody."

It was time to call in help.

--

As far as 'chances to escape from the boring talks' went, this really was not what Noriko had had in mind. She'd wanted to flee the exhibition, not crazy people. No matter how dull the talks were, they hadn't been assassination level boring.

"Come on," she called to her roommate, hand flapping towards Karolina to get her to move faster. "Run!" Nori was fighting the instinct to go full out, but even still she was getting ahead of the other girl, and while she wasn't always super fond of Karolina, she certainly wasn't going to leave her alone out here.

Karolina stumbled in her sandals and then kicked them off with a little sob, her aura flaring as she gave up on running and started to fly instead, just a few inches above the ground, catching up with Noriko easily. How could this be happening? This wasn't fair! "What's going on? Isn't someone coming to help?" Karolina demanded, the whine covering the panic. Poorly.

As the blond caught up Nori took the invitation to put on a little more speed, the two of them getting farther away from the chaos behind them, but also farther away from any of the help Karolina was looking for. "Don't know," she said, dodging through the trees. "Help is behind. Danger also behind. We? Run."

Karolina made a whimpering noise. "But where are we?" They'd run into the woods and, enforced trips to the backwoods notwithstanding, that meant that Kare was immediately and completely lost. "I can fly us faster than we can run but not if I don't know where we're going?"

"Is park," Nori said, pulling up short with the suddenness that characterized her power-assisted running. "City is everywhere. We go away."

Unfortunately, this was not a plan they were going to have time to implement.

There was a rustling in the leaves behind them, a strange dull shimmer of color only visible for an insanity before it cleared and a girl was standing there, watching the two of them. Dressed in camouflage, her black hair cropped short, she looked no older than Noriko and Karolina, and perhaps even slightly younger. Pale blue eyes gazed fixedly at the two girls before focusing on the glowing Karolina.

Her surroundings seemed to blur around her, as if someone had smudged the shadows and drawn them around her like a cloak, and she was invisible again. A good telepath would have been able to trace her rapid, purposeful progress towards Karolina, however.

Karolina couldn't have seen her coming, of course. The girl stepped out of the shadows, grabbing Karolina by the collar and throwing her sideways and hard against a tree.

The blonde hardly had time for a scream before she hit the trunk and then the ground, wind knocked from her body. An instinctive flare of hard light was the only thing that saved her from cracking a rib and she collapsed, choking for air, too stunned to do more than roll over and look back at their attacker.

"Kare!" Almost instantly Nori blurred into motion to place herself between her roommate and the new girl, hands out in front of her. "Go. Away," she said, glaring at the stranger.

Those light blue eyes, if anything, only hardened. Shadows swirled around her once more and she was gone, all but soundlessly. The hit that came at Noriko was from behind.

Nori was tossed forward, slamming into another tree, but with her body's increased density to withstand her speedster power and the months of 'practice' of running full tilt into things before she mastered stopping, she was up in seconds, instinctively tossing a bolt of energy in the direction the hit had come from. It wasn't as strong as it could have been, though - they might have been in side the city limits for a few hours, but there just weren't that many power sources in the middle of Central Park and her and Karolina's flight from the chaos had drained a lot of Noriko's reserves.

The bolt hit the ground, harmless. Shadows shifted and rippled, and the girl stepped back out of them, blurring at Noriko with obvious enhanced speed. Her strength was greater than it should have been, as well, and her hand-to-hand training, as she closed with Noriko, was obviously in a different class entirely.

"Stop it!" Karolina screamed, getting to her feet again and clinging to the tree. Her legs were shaking and her heart was pounding. The ever-present aura flared and swirled in scarlets and golds, splashing light all around them, "Leave her alone!" She flew forward though there wasn't anything she could do. But Noriko had protected her, she couldn't just let the crazy lady hurt her.

Nori needed more power and she needed it fast as their assailant got her hands on Noriko. "Yabbai!" she yelled and, instinctively, as she'd discovered all other aspects of her power, she pulled at the world around her. Throughout the nearby area lightbulbs burst out of the lamp posts while back in Westchester alarms began to go off as both her and Karolina's emergency phones died suddenly, and the attacking girl suddenly found that holding onto Nori was remarkably like holding onto a live wire as energy flowed into her faster and faster.

The girl let go, staggering backwards. She was visibly fighting to get her expression back under control, the pained look jerkily settling into a flat mask. Her knee came up, one hand going to her boot, and the knife caught a flash of light from somewhere as it emerged.

"Now that's just not fair."

The voice came from behind Noriko and Karolina, the direction from which they'd come, a slim, touseled figure emerging a split second later. Callisto herself had a small knife in each hand, and without further warning lost no time in sending one with a swift flick of her wrist hurtling towards the girl's right shoulder.

The girl blurred out of the way, the knife just clipping her. Shadows unfolded and shrouded her again, and for a moment, the distant screaming and the even more distant sound of emergency vehicles approaching at high speed were the only noise.

"Shit!" Callisto scowled, reaching behind herself to retrieve another knife that was concealed about her person. "You two, get out of here," she barked in the direction of the girls.

It seemed, for the next moment or two, as if their attacker had gone. There was no movement around them, no sound. Then, leaves crunched -just for an instant, and the girl was visible once more, coming at Callisto and demonstrating a far higher level of skill at hand-to-hand than anyone in their mid-teens should possess.

Swearing again, Callisto just barely had time to turn to face the girl head-on, fending off her blows, the occasional sound of metal on metal ringing out as their knives caught each other. As soon as Callisto seemed to gain the advantage, however, the girl was gone again in a blur of movement. Growling with frustration, Callisto simply held still, waiting, listening, eyes narrowed.

The next events seemed to happen all in the same instant. A twig snapped, the was a blur where Callisto's arm had been, and the girl came back into view already flying backwards from a hard backhand to the head, the expression on her face almost one of mild surprise.

It faded the next instant, replaced by a look of concentration as the girl, remaining visible, sized up Callisto with visible care. For the first time she spoke, murmuring something under her breath in a language that was definitely not English and which sounded almost singsong, even though it was barely audible. She feinted towards Callisto - at normal speed.

The older woman wasn't sure what this girl was doing, but she certainly wasn't going to waste a chance to get the better of her, swiftly moving to flank her and aiming a twist kick to her gut.

The girl's unnatural speed was back in the next second, taking her out of range of the kick. Safely beyond Callisto's reach, she whirled, shadows spinning around her again as she vanished. The little clearing fell silent once more.

Slowly Nori's head turned from side to side, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but as moments passed and the clearing stayed quiet her shoulders relaxed. She had, quite thoroughly, failed to follow Callisto's direction to leave, and now she stepped forward, grinning brightly. "Callisto-sama, sugoi! Very fast!"

Karolina kept clinging to the tree behind which she'd taken shelter, peeking out around it. She wasn't willing to go so far as "cool" like Noriko but it was definitely better than getting beat up by crazy women with chips on their shoulders. "What the hell was that? Why did she come after us like that? We didn't do anything!"

Callisto frowned, retrieving the thrown knife that had near-missed the girl and embedded itself deeply into a tree. "I don't know," she said simply, examining the blade with pursed lips as though checking it for blemishes, twirling it in her hands. She turned to look from girl to girl. "You two both all right?"

Nori nodded emphatically. "Hai, hai, Nori is fine. Eh..." She paused, and this time actually thought about it before continuing, "But... is hungry. No more power..."

"I'm okay. My side hurts," Karolina drifted forward, combing her fingers through her hair nervously, pulling out leaves and twigs lodged there from her fall. Her other arm was wrapped around her waist, cradling her injured side. "Can we go? We should go. What if she comes back?"

Glancing around, lips pursed, Callisto nodded a little distractedly. "Let's get you out of here." Then she seemed to catch herself. "Hurts how much?" she directed shortly at Karolina, then. "Does anything feel broken? Do you need it looked at?" She wasn't at all sure she was relishing this whole chaperoning thing - it was some time since she'd been responsible for anyone other than herself, but damned if she wasn't going to do it properly.

--

There was something approaching a smile on Scott's face as Jean took the advantage of the low pass Sam was currently making to haul Cain back into the plane telekinetically. "Are we going to start giving points?" he asked, loudly enough to be heard over the roar of the wind. "I really think we ought to start giving points..."

Cain grunted audibly over the sound of the wind as he floated back up through the drop hatch of the Blackbird, tucking his arms and legs in as it closed under him. "Not that it matters since apparently I can't get airsick," he complained, "but if you don't slow down, the wind under the damn plane sends me spinnin' every which ways. You drop anyone else through that, they're gonna have to hold off the Brotherhood with their mutant puke attack powers."

"Well, we're probably not actually dropping anybody else. Nobody does free fall like you, Cain," Jean added with a grin. "So anybody else going out that way is either doing it with their own propulsion source, or coming with Nate or I and mooching off ours."

"Not that I do not trust you and Nathan completely," Ororo said over the still-audible rush of the wind and the sound of the jet's mechanical systems, "but I think under these circumstances I will fall into the camp of people taking care of themselves."

Once Cain was in and Sam could pull out of the pick-up he shifted his attention back to the conversation. "If you wanted slow I'm not sure y'all picked the right pilot. I'm not good with slow, It's been fast or nothing for me for way too long." Sam laughed.

"And with a brand new shiny plane to play with, we can't be held responsible for crazy driving," Scott said brightly. Under any other circumstances, he would have been approaching this much more... soberly, but if he couldn't let his hair down a little around this crowd, he was in trouble.

"I think it's maybe time to test out that mooching off your propulsion source," he said to Jean. "I'll even volunteer. You can consider it a demonstration of my total and absolute trust in you. How many spouses do the falling-trust exercise from ten thousand feet?"

Jean grinned at him. "For everybody's sake, I think that small, select group really should consist of just you and Moira, should she ever decide to give it a shot."

Scott would have replied to that as it deserved, but the grin froze and vanished as the Professor's familiar presence was suddenly there in his head, words and images mixing together, painting a very grim picture.

God damn it, he thought, we just can't catch a break these days... "Sam," he called out, "turn around and head for Central Park. Angelo's run into trouble."