2013.06.08 - Tumult in Mutant Town



It's still early enough this Saturday morning that the last stragglers of the nightlife can be seen heading in to wherever they spend the day as people begin heading out for their day. Even here in mutant town, a chunk of the city that never sleeps is waking up to greet a hopefully warm and dry Saturday after the previous night's storms. There's a little more unrest in Mutant Town these days than usual with rumors of a murderer lurking around the darker parts of town. Most people have just chalked it up to stories and any supposed disappearances as people just not contacting anyone. Few people care enough to keep track of the mutants here in town after all. Unfortunately these are more than just stories and the proof makes a surprising reveal when something comes crashing through the boarded up window of the second floor in a run down apartment building. Two somethings in fact. People...one a costumed teenager and the other a rather deformed looking mutant with a large knife and it seems like the first tackled the other out the window. People on the sidewalk scatter as it looks like those people are about to hit the ground. Before impact, the knife-wielding mutant vanishes. There's a surprised squeak from Axiom before he tucks and rolls. Just in costume today, he rolls to a stop and looks around.

"Okay, he c-c-can teleport...that's not good," he murmurs, trying to guess where his apparent enemy will appear next.

Mutant Town. She was warned about spending time there. That was a mistake on the speaker's part because she was bound to go and check it out. Now, Saturday morning, she has spent the entire night observing the city that some might say she belongs in herself. To prepare for it she spent the entire previous afternoon napping after mixing up some healing elixirs in case she found need for them.

Now that the sun is rising and more reputable life is beginning to stir she is considering packing it in when the boarded up window crash is heard from the other side of the building she was standing atop of. A quick dance like ritual and a ***PAMPH*** puts her at the roof top looking down to see a recognized costume. She checks her hood to make sure it is up fully and, with a flick of her wrist extends her staff fully before repeating her ritual...

***PAMPH***

...she appears behind Axiom back to him and quickly says, "Baking you up, Axiom. What's the sit?" in a voice that might be recognized... depending on how well he remembers their brief food truck encounter.

The sound of someone appearing behind him makes Axiom jump and he whips around quickly, ready to throw a punch. Thankfully he hears the voice and sees who it is before there can be any super-heroic misunderstandings. "You know m-me?" he asks, getting the sense that he has met Merle before but isn't placing her right away. Axiom starts to say something else but it just ends up coming out as THWACK! as the rather ghoulish looking mutant appears and sends Axiom sprawling with a heavy punch. When the mutant notices Merle, he snarls. "Another of you interfering in my work!" he snaps, swinging that knife Merle's way.

Metal staff and blade both gleam in the increasing light of dawn as Blue spins her staff defensively impacting the ghoulish mutant's arm and deflecting the knife blade away from her. After parrying the attack she takes a step back in the direction Axiom flew.

"You patrol the city and defend its citizens but you are surprised that people know of you," she says with friendly laughter underpinning her words. "Yes, Axiom. We have even met, but you'll forgive me if I don't say where right now," she explains as she extends her right hand to him while keeping her staff steady in her left.

"For now, call me Blue," she says as way of introduction.

Axiom rubs his jaw as he accepts the hand up. "Well, y-yeah. I mean I'm not Superman or Iron Man," he replies, blushing a little. He just ends up looking a little confused when Blue mentions meeting him before but doesn't press for info just yet. "Blue? Alright. Be careful of this g-guy. He's been killing mutants like us," he explains. Nope, still has no idea he isn't a mutant.

Ghoul snarls as his attack is deflected, stepping back. When he gets a good look at Blue, his expression twists into an even more angry one. "More mutant filth to be cleansed," he growls. One of his free hands lifts and a blast of vibrant energy is launched at the heroic duo.

At the first sign of a ranged attack Merle's reflexes take control. She quickly draws a circle in the air with her, now free, right hand moving in an outward travelling arc as she yells "Scuto" (Latin for "Shield"). A vibrantly glowing shield of purple energy with a six foot diameter rotates into existence like an iris opening -- the blacklight component of the glow causes pale fluorescence effects that the dawning light mostly washes away out to nearly twenty-five yards. The shield is firmly in place, a few feet away from where she and Axiom stand.

"What's his problem, self-loathing or hadn't he looked in a mirror lately?" Blue asks Axiom, speaking loudly enough so her words will clearly reach the ghoulish mutant.

The blast crashes against the shield, scorching the pavement under both. Axiom meanwhile relaxes slightly, having been about to leap out of the way. "M-magic? Cool," the power booster replies. He's been around enough magic to recognize it...and the Latin was kind of a giveaway. "I have n-no idea. I tried reasoning with him but I just got crazy ranting and him trying to stab me," Axiom replies.

Ghoul meanwhile just looks like he'd probably be green and smashing if he were Gamma Powered after hearing what Blue has to say. Teleporting again, Ghoul reappears in the air over Blue and falls towards her with the knife pointed at her.

Teleportation. It's a trick that won't fool Blue too much, what with her familial association with that ability. So the guy vanishes. A quick glance pinpoints his location -- especially since she learned at an early age to look up (thanks for all those ambush exercises dad!).

Abandoned, the shield fades away in a patchy fashion. Merle's first action is to push Axiom away and, as the attacker's shadow grows quickly, she then flips away herself leveraging her weight with a firmly planted staff butt against the sidewalk.

"Whoa big fella, what's your grief with me?" she asks as she crouches a few yards away from where she last stood.

Axiom's already moving as Blue pushes him. Kid's a quick one and while he isn't as well versed in teleportation as Blue and her family, he's a fan of ambush attacks himself. He rolls to the side, settling into a defensive stance as Ghoul lands. Pavement cracks and the sound of metal scraping street cuts through the morning air. Ghoul pulls his knife from the gash it's made in the street and glares Blue's way. "Dirty mutants like you deserve nothing more than death. I'll clean the Earth of you inferior scum and -guh!" he stumbles, cut off as Axiom charges him from behind and sends him stumbling forward with a kick. He takes a swipe at the power booster with his free hand and Axiom dodges...by falling flat on his rear and rolling away. Not the most graceful but it gets the job done. Backing away from Ghoul, Axiiom smiles to Merle. "Okay...you m-might want to brace yourself," he says, his eyes lighting up bright blue as he applies his boosting powers to Blue.

Blue's reaction to the boost is best summarized with the single word she utters before taking action. "Whoa..."

She leaps into the air, taking advantage of her boosted strength to pass over the ghoulish mutant's head. At the zenith of her trajectory she makes a throwing action with her free, right, hand while loudly changing "Vincientes tenent personam," in Latin (literally: "Binding the person") and streamers of shimmering purple energy snake through the air from her hand towards the aggressive mutant who they encircle and begin the process of binding him like magical ropes.

After casting the spell, she does a flip and a twist so that when she lands in a crouch she is again facing the mutant -- hopefully now well bound by her spell -- holding her staff parallel to the ground in front of her in a ready position.

"Almost everyone s-says that the first time," Axiom remarks with a friendly little laugh. He watches as Merle springs into action, again not understanding the Latin but catching onto the spell's effects pretty easily enough. He considers a moment and decides to add to the whoa factor just in case. A little concentration and there's a small flash of light as Axiom mimics Merle. His uniform shifts into a fusion of his own and hers and what might be shocking enough, Axiom goes all blue too. As soon as the transformation is complete, he takes one of the now two staves on his belt in hand and holds it at the ready.

Ghoul fires off another energy blast at Merle seconds before she leaps, the blast striking the street rather than her thanks to the leaping. He looks up to follow her movements and immediately starts thrashing once bound up. He ends up tied but it's doing nothing to soothe his temper. "Get these off me!" he demands, struggling harder.

As he begins to thrash against the binding, Blue focuses on the spell to maintain her concentration on the spell -- which is made more easy for her because of Axiom's continued boost -- and enhances it with an additional incantation of "Vincientes reactive," in Latin (literally: "Reactive binding") which makes the binding strengthen in response to the mad mutant's struggles -- like magical duct tape.

Blue doesn't respond to the ghoulish mutants rantings, instead she looks over at Axiom and repeats her earlier comment... "Whoa," her reaction to seeing him look so similar to her now.

It's a warm, bright morning down in mutant town but there's not a lot of people out on this particular street. Why? Well they scattered when superhero and a crazy murderer crashed into the street and were joined shortly after by another heroic mutant. The battle's been going on with a lot of acrobatic flips and magical shininess for the past few minutes. Currently, the murderous Ghoul is bound in magical ropes and ranting while trying to get free. To one side of him is Blue and to the other is Axiom...who's currently looking a lot like Blue. Go mimicry powers.

Ghoul growls as he keeps struggling, eventually starting to release more of those energy blasts in every direction. Street, sidewalk, light, mailbox, beaten up car... all of its targets for those blasts. Axiom leaps out of the way as one comes flying his way. "Look out!" he calls to Blue.

You can always tell the heroes: They're the ones running towards the sound of the massive disturbance rather than away from it. No question which one Jubilee is, even if she'd really rather be going the other way. "Fudgesicles... I am totally dressed for this," she mutters. Her flared denims, white leather jacket, red high-tops, and wide-necked, cropped pullover aren't exactly made for taking on the local scuzzball population.

She arrives on the scene to find something ugly blasting everything in sight, sending things flying. And it looks like two people she knows are right in the middle of where those things are flying. She ducks back around the corner, peeking around to watch for those blasts to die down for a second, silently summoning up a cloud of bright white plasmoids around both hands so she'll be ready to take advantage of the opening. Best to pick the opportune moment...

Merle's hood has fallen back during all the acrobatics so everyone around is seeing her unmasked features -- not that she is terribly concerned about that with the ghoul showering the area with energy blasts. As she dodges his she fires off one of her own yelling "Control yourself!" at the 'man'. Unfortunately, she is unaware of the extent of her boost from Axiom and so she lets loose with a roughly half strength which is much stronger than she expected, making a blast she expected to be roughly equivalent of a high powered handgun more like an anti-tank weapon. Luckily she intentionally aimed low so that only half the blast hits the bound mutant while the rest splinters the pavement beside him.

There's more than one blast heading Ghoul's way, Axiom letting one fly as well. Ghoul yells out in mixed pain and rage as he's sent flying. He ends up crashing into the ground near Jubilee's hiding space. He seems mostly out of it but better safe than sorry, right?

Jubilee peeks out... and immediately draws back as Mister Ugly smashes to the ground almost right beside her! "Yow! Hey, you need a license to be flying like that!" she protests. Then she sees how wonky he looks at the moment. "Oh... it wasn't your idea."

But it looks like he's trying to shake it off. "Dude, seriously, I'd just lay there." He keeps shaking. "Okay, you asked for it!" She flicks her shades into place and lets loose those plasmoids, bursting them in a blinding, mesmerizing sequence of stroboscopic flashes!

Part of the gathered crowd scatters as the bound bruiser flies though the air. Seeing that someone is there to keep an eye on the mutant Blue doesn't follow immediately, instead she gives Axiom an 'I see what you did' kind of look and says, "Pretty neat power there," to him before indicating that she thinks they should both move closer to where their opponent is being showered in multicolored plasmoids.

As she walks over she twirls her staff causing it to collapse into its smallest form and then tucks it into the concealed pocket in the back of her uniform. Hoping to do this discretely, she leans close to her friend and fellow X-Man and asks, "Do I call you Jubilee in the field or something different?" and adds, "Call me Blue, by the way."

Axiom just looks sheepish at Merle's look and words, his hood falling back as well. "I um... thanks. Yours are awesome," he says, looking down at his hands a moment and getting a weird deja vu feeling. He shakes it off, copying the motions to fold up the staff he mimicked as well. He and Merle arrive in time to see Ghoul passing out, his knife clattering to the pavement. "Hey, Jubilee," Axiom greets quietly. Yes, he knows her. He's on a team with her too. When it looks like the battle is over, there's some silence before the people brave enough to stick around starts cheering.

"Jubilee's fine, Blue," the California girl whispers with a grin, just as Axiom comes up. "Hey back, Ax! Looks like you two did all the hard work. Are you okay?" She looks one over, then the other.

Merle grins as she sees that the two people she's with are already familiar with each other. This is a good thing. She kneels next to the unconscious mutant, releasing the remnant of her concentration and allowing the magical binding to fade. As they fade she pulls a latex glove out of the pocket on her left breast pocket and snaps it onto her right hand before pulling out a tin and unscrewing it to expose a pungent ointment that she smears on the mutant's upper lip and around his nostrils.

As she closes the tin and removes the glove the ointment is already fading into his skin. "That will keep him unconscious for a few hours," she says as she stands. "You two know each other I see," she adds as a commentary on their obvious interaction.

Still blue due to boosting and mimicking Merle, Axiom nods. "I'm fine. N-nothing but a few bruises and scrapes from the fight," he says in a cheerful tone. There's just something about him that might give one the impression he'd have the same tone if that knife were lodged in his side. He watches Blue apply that strange ointment curiously before nodding. "We d-d-do. She's one of the Young Allies like I am," he says, taking out his phone to dial up the cops. "We should probably g-get out of here before the cops show," he adds.

"Yup. Aside from being Allies, we've worked together before," Jubes explains, adding to Axiom's own words. "Wow... ointment that knocks people out? Do you have a jar I could borrow?" she asks, smiling entreatingly at Blue. The trouble something like that could save her in the field!

She nods at Ax's sentiment. "I'm with you, Axiom Let's find someplace where you two can change, then get some coffee, the farther from here the better!" She leads the way back down the alley she came in through.

This scene has an immediate sequel in 2013.06.08 - Talking After Tumult