2012-08-19 The Other Side of Summer

Despite having a slightly rocky first impression, Clint has decided that Wisdom is an okay guy. His head is in the right place, he's not afraid to piss off authority if it means doing the right thing, and he curses like a sailor with a hangover. So he's taken it upon himself to show the newest addition to the SHIELD family his own personal tour of New York City. So where does he take him? To the Statue of Liberty? The MoMA? Maybe to a baseball game, to get all that 'football' and cricket out of his system?

"This, right here?" Clint says as he waits in line outside a vendor's cart near the edge of Central Park. "Best hot dog in the city, bar none." As he watches, the dog is slathered in chives, sour cream, some yellow and brown mustard and then topped with a sprinkling of relish and onions. As soon as his masterpiece is done the vendor turns his attention from Clint to the Brit. He seems to be chewing something on the side of his mouth, sloshing it from side to side.

"What'll it be, jack?" he grunts out as he wipes his greasy hands against his apron."

Caitlin Fairchild emerges from a nearby public restrom, toweling her hair off as best as possible with a dishtowel. 'Another day...nother sink shower...' she thinks to herself, before tossing the towel over her shoulder and running her fingers to comb out her hair as best as possible. She is wearing a long sleeved green and purple one piece spandex swimsuit, with the high-tech superthin Nomex ballistic armor, and a pair of faded jeans. Both the suit and the jeans have seen better days, and are held together by strips of purple and silver duct tape.

She makes her way over to the hotdog vendor, and glances at the price on the little sign before opening up a tiny denim back pack. She's counting pennies to herself, seeing if she has enough.

Wisdom, for his part, is looking at Clint's hot dog with a mixture of hungry fascination and mild horror. Without even looking at the vendor, he points to the most worrisome food-cart delicacy he's seen in Manhattan so far. "That," he says, finally looking up. "One of those. No. Two. Two of those." And then he glances aside at Caitlin, does a quick, calculating once-over, and amends, "Three."

In the background, there's a gradual filtering out of sound. Very slow, unnoticeable. It's a breezy, sunny afternoon, after all; wind ruffles through the trees and joggers jog, the omnipresent sound of cicadas circles in a buzz, long and high and electric-sounding; birds sing in the trees. It's the birds that fall silent first, one by one.

The prices for the hot dogs, just plan, are fairly reasonable, even on a meager budget; it's the wall of condiments and extras that make the dog cost more and more. But Caitlin's caculations are for not as the vender simply nods and starts fixing Wisdom's trio of dogs, not so much as raising an eyebrow. Clint on the otherhand raises both. "Three? I know you overslept past breakfast, but that does that seem really wise?" he says, sounding legimitately concerned. "You need to stay in shape for the field, to say nothing of your girlish..." Clint slows down long enough to see where Wisdom is looking towards. Buying meals for the crowd? "Figure," Clint says to finalize his thought before glancing towards Wisdom with a slight, approving nod before taking a deep breathe, enjoying the scenario as he begins to chow down on his dog."

Caitlin seems completely unaware that the gentleman in front of her just bought her a hot dog. She seems to have counted out enough and is standing patiently behind him, oblivious to the looks she seems to draw. The girl continues to run her fingers through her hair with one hand, and finally gets a little frustrated, and musses it once with a huff. "Need a haircut." she mutters, looking around.

"Girlish figure," repeats Pete with a flat incredulity, looking down at himself, then shaking his head. As he continues, he pulls out his wallet and takes out a twenty. "Fuck, Barton, this and your wanting me in a uniform upstairs-- look, I'm not interested in blokes, you're going to have to look elsewhere." After the first two dogs, he hands over the twenty; he picks them up and absently turns to hand one to the patiently waiting hot redhead, addressing Clint again, this time with his eyebrows up. "Fuel for the furnace, mate. Don't worry about what I shove down the tubes."

The crickets and bees and flies are next, the visible insects and the obvious noisemakers. The cicadas fall silent one by one, so even the loss of the circling hum of heat's presence is slow and unobtrusively progressive. Pete takes a disturbingly enormous bite of fully loaded hot dog and beams, mouth tight over the too-much, at Clint.

Clint shakes his head as he starts to munch down on his dog as well. "I think you may have misunderstood me," he says with a slight grin. "I mean, I know we haven't known each other long, but how often do you see me in the jumper if I'm not in the field?" A short pause, and then Clint informs him, "Answer? Never. But if you want to show you're part of the team, then I'm all for it. And besides," he offers a slight smirk. "You are thoroughly not my type." He glances towards the woman that Wisdom oh so casually just bought lunch for and offers a slight nod of his head towards the mystery redhead himself. The fact that the bugs have died down isn't noticed, not precisely, so much as Clint marvels slightly, silently at first, and then aloud. "You know, for being this deep into Summer, it usually is a bit more...abuzz around here. People must be stuck at work," he muses, checking his watch as he goes.

Fairchild blinks and takes the hotdog, utterly surprised. She starts to open her mouth, then shuts it again, and waits just past three seconds too long before exclaming. "Thank you."

Caitlin steps out of line and starts in on the dog like it's her first meal of the day, which it is. She too blinks when Clint mentions the lack of noise and starts to look around. "Now that you mention it...." she says outloud, the edge of her voice slightly shy.. "It /is/ really quiet...."

And once the vendor hands Pete the third dog and his change (a whole two dollars!), he starts -- as if unconsciously -- to turn hot things off and pack up. It's /afternoon/ and he's in /Central Park/ and there are...

...there /aren't/ people everywhere. Joggers, nowhere. There isn't even the sound, but for the quiet echo of streets further away from the entrance, of traffic. Okay, a kid whizzes by on a bike, but he's *leaving* the park. "Shit," mumbles Pete around his mouthful after giving Clint a hotdoggy smirk; his eyes narrow and he starts eating with a vengeance. Too busy to talk, stuffing face. Instead, he jerks his head toward 'further in', eyes on Clint as they start to shift from bright blue to brown, to hazel-- and a brief, curious look at Caitlin before he repeats the motion to her. Already on the second hot dog, he begins to walk up the paved path into the park proper, away from the stone wall of demarcation.

Now there's only the breeze in the treetops and the faint noise of cars, elsewhere.

Clint is more curious than truly concerned, but when Wisdom's see-food diet act turns into actual business-time? He takes notice, tapping the back of his shrit to verify that he still has his firearm on him in case things get hairy. And this is why he should just have lunch in the mess hall. Less likely to have to deal with bullshit in there. He glances towards the stranger, and offers a slight glance. It is silent, but it can be translated generally as 'If you want to get out of here and enjoy your hot dog, I wouldn't judge you.' Clint has very talkative looks.

Caitlin sighs softly, and crams the rest of the hot dog in her mouth. Mouth full, she uses fairly standard military hand signals, saying she's going, and will cover the middle, before she starts moving, eyes sweeping from side to side trying to figure out whats scared everyone off. So hey...something interrutped lunch. At least she got a free meal out of it. And with a fresh roll of duct tape in her bag, she just might make it through this.

Finishing the second hot dog with astonishing rapidity, Pete pats his pockets and reaches in to pull out a pair of sunglasses, then puts them on. He crumples the tinfoil and lobs it into a bin as they're passing, and his feet are quiet on the pavement, his whole carriage and bearing broadcasting 'alert'. The further in the three go, the quieter it gets-- and no, there are no people on the paths, on the grass. No dogs barking, no bunnies hopping, no birds flitting from tree to tree; once they're past where one can yet see the road from the path, even the wind is still.

The scent of ozone is in the air, though the sky is clear blue, not a cloud in sight; the atmosphere is charged, ionized.

Up ahead, there's a quick movement in the trees, ground level.

The fact that the mystery woman knows military sign? Yeah. That gets tucked away for later while Clint finishes his own lunch and tosses it away in a bin, in the same motion reaching behind and checking his handgun to make sure it's ready to go if he needs it. He glances towards Wisdom; seeing how he seems to have some idea of what's happening, Clint is going to follow his lead for now. When he catches signs of movement, he quickly stations himself and raises the gun with both hands. He's a steady shot, with his attention divided between watching the area he saw the movement from as well as waiting to see what Wisdom does in this situation.

Stay low, stay fast, move from cover to cover in a stagered formation so that enemy gunman can't anticipate your movments. Military training 101. Caitlin darts from tree, to bush, to trash can, trying to get a closer look at what ever is causing the quick movement up ahead. She's keeping to the middle, so that any surprises come at her first, or she can intercept if they make for the others.

Fairchild stops beind a tree, and glances at the two men, noting their positions. She points at her self, then her eyes, and then thumbs behind her. Translation: I'm going to take a look. Then nice and slow like, Caitlin peers past the tree, trying to see what in the central park is going on.

And there's an O.K. sign from Pete to Caitlin; if she's acting like this and indicating she's taking point? He's all for it. Not a point guy, himself. His eyes might be behind his sunglasses, but they're visible nonetheless: dim, featureless, eye-shaped light. He glances back toward Clint as he moves toward the low wall edging the path, steps over it, takes partial cover. His mouth twists down slightly as he catches the gunman looking to *him* for clues, and he shakes his head, spreads his hands slightly, shrugs. He doesn't know what's going on.

The air's thicker the closer Caitlin gets. There's a sweet scent that laces with the ozone, curling through the air like ivy, light and clean like honeysuckle or clover, and the leaves seem greener and the sunlight dappling the ground and trees is brighter, the shadows sharper.

Ahead of Cait, between the trees where the movement was and hidden by brush, there's a rumble and the sifting sound of falling dirt, and the earth shifts under the feet of all three. Abruptly, a toothpick gets shot at the redhead from the bushes. A really sharp toothpick. And then another one, and a shrill sound like an angry mockingbird. There's more earth-movement sound, and a creeeaking.

Clint watches as the strange takes point, moving closer into the mysteriously silent forest. Clint takes cover near Pete as well, keeping his steady aim firmly set on the forest before them. "You know that girl?" he asks in a hushed whisper. "She seems to know how to carry...herself..."

His question is cut-off as there is a sudden volley of sharp toothpicks and loud avian noises. Great. It's something weird. Ducking behind cover slightly, he frowns and glances back towards Wisdom, trying to maintain his balance as the earth starts to quake and shake beneath him. "I don't suspect I have to tell you...but this is officially 'weird' territorry," he shouts over the sudden cacophony of sound, before re-establishing his post, eyes now firmly locked on their pointwoman.

Caitlin stays low as she rounds the tree, and then blinks an exclaims "Ow." as the pair of toothpicks pierce right through her suit only to shatter against her superdense skin. A sensation not unlike being poked with a dull needle. "Ow!"

Caitlin throws herself forward into a roll, coming up ready and looking around. 'What in the hell is this..." she wonders to herself. One sees some weird stuff working for the CIA. Angry mockingbirds with a toothpick fetish doesn't begin to cover it.

"Don't know her from Eve," Pete says to Clint, under his breath, "but yeah and she knows from combat, look at the way she's moving. That's training and experience." And then Cait's getting plinked by toothpicks and the man straightens a little, peering around the tree he's behind.

After the 'ow' and the 'ow' and Caitlin going into a duck-and-roll, there's a moment's silence from the bushes and the trees closest to them. No sound at all.

"--feel right at home," Wisdom answers Clint dourly in the silence, dropping to one knee in the dirt and looking up, then holding his finger to his lips with his gun-free hand and cupping his hand behind his ear, cocking his head.

Another toothpick launches at Fairchild, and this time it gets stuck in her hair. And it's not a toothpick. It's a tiny, tiny arrow, fletched, with a chipped flint head.

The sifting sound starts up again. And then there's a shrill, angry noise-- again like a mockingbird mama with a cat near her nest-- and it's joined by a cacophony of answering shrieks in the trees and bushes and tall grass and weeds and ivy, and tiny tiny arrows begin to rain down on all three of them, coming at them from all directions. Then a shimmering shrieking host of tiny, blurry figures comes pouring out of the undergrowth around Caitlin and flying all around her, trying to slice at her (and probably doing a number on her clothes) and bite her (and breaking teeth in the process) and punch and slap and kick her-- but only on one side. The side facing the source of the sifting rumbling of moving earth.

Clint continues to keep his bead on the area from which the tiny projectiles are coming from, squinting to see anything that he can get a shot at, the rumbling beneath his feet making it more difficult to keep a steady aim. But when the tiny things start shooting at him? Yeah, time to take cover, as he hurries towards a large boulder nearby. He squarts down low, grunting as something lodges into the back of his hand. Looking down, he raises a brow as he recognizes it for what it is; after all, he'd know an arrow anywhere. He glances over towards Wisdom to see if he has realized that these aren't just random splinters, before he peeks over his boulder and tries to see if he can find any source of this chaos, what is making that BIG noise. He really wants something to shoot right about now. Stupid tiny archers ruining his awesome lunch.

Ever see those old movies where the shrieking woman comes running out of the cave, batting at her hair while bats come pouring out, shrieking at the light? Picture that. Now add in the fact that as Caitlin starts swinging and shrieking and batting at her hair and swatting at the swarm of whatever the hell kinda punching kicking biting arrow shooting little bugs these are, that she's really strong. I mean /really/ strong. One stray backhand hits the tree she was near, and the entire plant acts like it was shot with a cannon as her hand rips a chunk from the side of the trunk.

And her poor, poor suit. There isn't enough duct tape to salvage what's left of her clothes as she comes running back away from the swarm of...yeah, those things. "What in the son of a mother!" she curses, getting them all wrong.

"FUCKing HELL!" yelps Pete, jamming the gun back in his waistband and ripping his shirt open -- yes he wears undershirts -- so he can stretch it over his head like a tent. "Ow fuck fuck fuck--" as he's running for cover himself, then, and then finding no cover without holes in it; he stumbles back out into the path and whips the now-pointy shirt to the ground, then powers up. Powers up enough that it's not just his eyes glowing behind his sunglasses, it's his fists glowing, it's his clothes starting to smoke. At least nothing's shooting at him as much out here.

Nothing's /shooting/ as much out here. Nothing's... shooting /at/ out here.

"SHIT! You two /get out here/ they're HERDING!" he yells over the raucous miniature battlecries and the sound of high-pitched pitched combat and the rumbling ground.

Then another voice comes, and it's made of the earth's rumbling. Low and deep and wide, like a crevasse to the bottom of everything, and completely lacking inflection. "/MORTAL... THINGS/," it says as slowly as Swamp Thing, "/DO... NOT... INTER... FERE. LEAVE... THIS... PLACE."

And now Wisdom is stripping. No, wait. Stripping and glowing. Clint wrinkles his nose, but nods his head as Pete starts to get a plan together. He's certainly out of his element, so he's going to argue. He hesitates for a moment before he starts to close the gap between himself and the Brit, covering his head with his arms; he can take the pricks to his arms and hands, but less fond of head trauma. He slides to the area behind the true, before looking over towards the mystery woman. "PULL BACK!" he yells at her, just before hearing that voice.

"Wisdom...please tell me that you didn't piss off God and forget to tell me."

Caitlin can follow orders, even in the face of overwhelming hundreds of...those things. She sprints towards the sound of Pete's voice and skids to a stop next to him on the path. She blinks a few times, and then takes a moment to look down at her self. So much for laying low. One can't be homeless in this little clothing. It's in the city code or something. Just barely managing to be decent enough for people to not stuff dollars into the one strap of purple duct tape that survived around her right thigh, she looks to Pete. "Now what?" she asks, shaking her hair out and dropping a bunch of the tiny projectiles all over.

"Not that I know of," says Pete in baffled exasperation, now that Clint's close enough to hear him without the yelling; he kills about three quarters of his current heat, which is good news for his scorching clothes with all the arrow holes. His eyes are still visible behind the black shades, and his hands are still glowing, but it's a dull red. He takes a half-step forward and there's a renewed shrieky outcry of furious fluttery things and a tiny hail of more arrows, and he jumps back again, cursing. "Fuck! Fuck if I know. Talk to it?"

At least as long as they're staying away from the forest, they're not getting shot at and the sound of the tiny figures is a background hum of chittery noise. The tree, though, the one that Caitlin knocked over? It's not the only distressed tree anymore. There's a heave of the earth and trees start uplifting their roots and cracking and groaning-- but these don't fall. They pull themselves up out of the ground and rearrange, moving away from the spot Cait'd gotten really close to and replanting themselves. Debris rains down from overhead, bits of bark and leaves and twigs, a couple of old birds' nests and a big empty paper hornet's nest.

"Oh for shit's sake," the Briton among the three breathes, aggravated beyond the pale. He looks up, watching all this, shielding his face from above with an arm.

Rising from the earth and upsetting the dirt and rocks and part of the wall separating forest from path, an enormous rock troll sort of thing makes itself visible. It's surrounded by clouds of shimmering, buzzing, chattering pixies, and its huge mouth creaks open, dislodging pebbles and rains of dirt. "/I... HAVE... AWAKENED/," it grinds out, in a master application of 'stating the completely bloody obvious.

It bends down, reaches as if to rummage through the bracken-- actually rummages through the bracken-- and then straightens up with an unconscious teenager draped over two fingers and held in place gently by a huge thumb. "/THE... GATE... HAS... BEEN... OPENED. THIS... PLACE... DECLARES... WAR. ON... ITS... JAILORS./"

Clint looks on and listens to the short speech, frowning deeply at the rather...dire proclamation. Then he looks down at his gun and makes sure that it's loaded, the safety's off. Yep, everything is good to go. "Okay, Wisdom, here's the plan: I'm going to draw attention away from you with our new friend here, stay on the move. When the walking dirt pile over there gets its eyes off of you? I want you to jam as much of that damned hot mess you call a power into it, as fast and hot and deep..." Clint pauses, realizing how erotic this conversation got, very quickly. "Look, bottom line, we distract it, you fry it. Any objections? Too bad!"

And he gone, running across the field and firing potshots off towards the walking-talking dirtpile, and shouting out. "YO, ONE PRISONER OVER HERE FOR YA ROCKY. LETS SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH ME!" He zigs, he zags, he tries his best not to get killed. He would rather be done in by, say, Dr. Doom than the firmament in Central Park.

Caitlin sighs when she sees the teenager. "I'll distract ugly. And someone body owes me a new suit." she says to Clint's plan and turns and charges. Okay Mr. Rock troll....your standing on the tracks and the 10:15 Fraichild express is coming through. Not the most subtle technique, to be sure, but hopefully Clint is drawing the swarm off enough for Caitlin to get close enough to get the youth out of harms way.

"The kid-- /the kid/!!" yells Wisdom in protest-- and then Caitlin's going after the monster, and he lets a breath out through his teeth, glowing hands opening up and fingers elongating, sharpening, forming white-hot knives at the tips. "Right-- all right. Ginger girl! Don't whale on him, love, just get the kid out of there!"

As a huge flood of tiny combat faeries dives after Clint and start shooting and screaming bloody murder, and the monster slowly, creakingly turns its mighty attention toward the man, Pete raises his voice. "OI! SHEEPSHAGGER! YOU DON'T LIVE HERE!" he bellows, taking a step forward again; a few pixies start shooting at him again, and he opens his hands and splays his fingers, burning the arrows up when they get close. "YOU STUPID FUCKING TWAT, THIS ISN'T YOUR HOME! THIS ISN'T YOUR JAIL! GO HOME! TROLLS ARE NORSE! FUCKING GO TO KENT WILL YOU!"

As Cait's getting nearer the rock monster, its black gaze turns from Clint toward Wisdom, and the hand holding the teenager lowers. And then she's closer still, and it looks down, and its other hand swings in a monstrous arc toward her. "/THIS... IS... THE... CALL/!" it rumbles. "/THIS... IS... THE... PE... TI...TION! I... HAVE... AWAKENED... AS... ASKED! YOU... SPEW... MORTAL... LIES!/"

Clint pulls out a few more meters, firing towards the troll until finally emptying that clip, popping it out and reaching for the other. And that's when he notices that Pete is yelling. Nonono, you're supposed to attack and save the kid, not play pull away, Clint thinks, actually not moving, in the process feeling a miniature arrow sink into his neck. "God, son of an asshole," he mutters and he tosses the arrow aside. He reloads his gun and aims it at the beast, narrowing his eyes. "Right. No more volleys," Clint mutters, before popping off a series of four chosen shots, the first two in the eye of the best, the other two in seemingly weak points. He doubts it will down the beast, but maybe stagger it enough that the girl can work some magic. But not like...magick...

As the hand comes sweeping down towards her, Caitlin wait, and leaps, turning her body to attempt to plant her feet and push, letting the earthen monster provide her with the momentum to leap from one hand to the other, to get closer to the captured teen. She seems to be just as agile as she is strong.

"Catch!" she yells, bringing both arms down, trying to smash the creatures wrist, and hopefully get it to drop the teen.

"Christ," mutters Pete, taking another step forward, stepping sideways a couple of paces, trying to get a better line-of-sight on the monster. "WELL IT'S A FUCKING WRONG NUMBER!" He shoots a hotknife, hissing through the air and cutting burning holes through leaves on the way, into the monster's rocky skin.

The combination of Clint's shooting at weak spots, Caitlin's demolishing its arm, and Pete's plasma melting through its surface and into its body-- the monster ROARS and makes the trees shake, and the pixies start swarming around Cait again, firing at Clint and Pete.

The teenager drops to the forest floor, rocks tumbling on and around him, bloodying his forehead and undoubtedly bruising him a lot-- and a glowing shard of crystal rolls out of his hand, right there for Fairchild to see. It's as bright as the living fire Wisdom's holding.

"GET THE KID AND GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Wisdom blasts from the pavement, impatient and throwing another burning knife at the monster. The gunshots bring bigger and bigger chips off it, dislodge whole rocks, break off part of its head. Pete's clothes are smoking again; his sunglasses fall off his face, mangling when they hit the ground. "Fucking /god/--"

Note to self, buy Wisdom a new pair of stunners, Clint thinks to himself as he sees the combined effort causing the troll to falter. When Wisdom shouts out his orders, Clint makes the quick assesment that the red-headed stranger is in the best position to get to the teen in question, with Clint merely covering Pete for the time being. He really hopes that this thing will be vulnerable to the heated attack, but even if it isn't the improtant thing is that the victim will be safe. "Come on Pete," he mutters under his breathe, waiting for the fallout.

Fairchild drops to the ground, and blinks a second at the crystal on the ground. Making a snap descion, she decides to pick it up and throw it to land at Pete's feet, "Heads up!" She yells, before scooping up the bruised teen and leaping clear of the monster, using her own body as much as possible to sheild the youth. "I should add a whole cart of hotdogs in addition to a new suit." she mutters.

Pete and Cait both, there. The crystal clatters to the asphalt at Wisdom's feet, even as he's ducking aside because 'heads up' is bad if he can't currently catch anything without destroying it-- and then Cait and her charge are both free of the monster's sphere of influence and the mutant hurls a volley of ten brilliant shards of pure radiant heat at the monster.

It's been roaring this whole time, and it's still roaring as trees fall around it and its legs give out underneath it, the sun-hot knives melting straight through its knees and boring holes through its torso. It's still roaring as it topples, slagged rock starting fires of its own when it hits the leaf-strewn ground; it's still roaring as the frenzy of the combat pixies reaches critical mass. It falls on its back and Wisdom keeps throwing knives at it; the mutant glances down at the glowing crystal, and tries to stamp on it-- but it only cuts through his smoking shoe. Words of disgust. "EFF EM ELL!" Okay, letters of disgust.

The crystal's dimming as it lays there on the asphalt, and as it dims, it starts to pulse in time with the dying cries of the rock monster-- for dying it is. And then the moment of 'I'm a-firin' mah lasers!' arrives, because the volleys stop and Wisdom brings his hands together in a thundrous clap, and all the knives combine into a blade the size of a bombshell, which hurtles, singing through the air, toward the living earthquake.

It is hard to not stare at the madness of Wisdom's powers being put to full effect, but Clint simply glances towards it before checking that the woman has gotten the teen out of harm's way. He nods his head towards her just before something catches the corner of his eye. The shard, glimmering. Lifting his pistol, he takes aim, takes a deep breathe to steady his hand and then fires, a bullet shooting out towards it, followed by another quick follow-up.

Caitlin keeps moving, holding the teen in a wedding carry as she moves back to the path a short ways down and starts circling back towards Pete. She sets the teen down in the grass, and turns to head back into the fray once again, before stopping to watch the beast fall and flair and the little things swarm around it like so many angry bees. "Umm....Now what?"

Apparently, 'now what' is the shard exploding from the impact of the first bullet: exploding into a rain of sparkling dust, dust that initially glows and dies as it falls to the asphalt. The second round embeds itself in the ground on top of the remains of the first one.

The enormous plasma blade rips through the trees in its path and into the monster, and the expansion of the melting rock starts to explode what's left of its outer layer, when--

--the crowds and swarms of pixies start getting sucked back through the air toward the troll along with the exploding debris, and it's like an implosion, it's like a rewind, it's like a 'just kidding really!', and it's accompanied by a deafening WHOOSH and the creeping sensation of elemental magic *breaking*. The WHOOSH progresses to a VWOOORP as the debris, the monster, the glittering dust, the pixies, the arrows, and a lot of fallen tree and wrecked bracken (and a couple of rocks from the broken stone wall) basically get hoovered into a shining gold singularity.

There's the POP (and the ear-hurting) of a sudden extreme shift in pressure, and dust settles, and burning things stop burning and just smoke, and ash drifts through the air. The bruised teenager stirs; Wisdom's bent almost double, totally powered down and gasping for breath, hands braced against his legs. There's not a lot left of what he was wearing. He gives up on trying to remain standing and sits down unceremoniously. "Shit," he mumbles, putting his head between his knees.

The magical beasts all being sucked into a vortex of nothingness (not weird, nope, not one bit), Clint feels comfortable holstering his weapon. He gives a glance towards the mystery redhead. "Stay right there, watch the kid," he says evenly before rushing over towards Pete, placing a hand on his back as he squats down. "Hey, Pete, good job. You gonna puke? You need space? In case you don't know, the answer to those questions are the same."

"Someone mind telling me what the fuck that was?" Caitlin asks, after a moment, starting in stunned disbelief as everything just ups and vanishes. "You know what...don't. I don't wanna know." she says, before realizing that she's talking outloud and blushes a little. She covers it by turning and checking the teen, making sure nothing requires immediate medical attention.

"Nuh," mumbles Wisdom, trying to regulate his breathing. "Food. Sleep. Be fine." Apparently Caitlin's question is too much for him. He just sits there, otherwise; through the singed and scorched undershirt, he still feels like he's burning up, but not like... burning things. Just like 'my, that man appears to be unwell!' fever stuff. "G'me a min."

The teenager at Cait's feet-- he's a gawky kid with dirty-blond hair and rock-troll-dust-covered clothes, jeans and a t-shirt and a lightweight hoodie; the t-shirt is one of those COEXIST logos and he's got tattoos on the palms of his hands, arcane sigils. He starts to blink awake, hands closing into fists-- and the hand that'd been holding the crystal spasms. "No," he whispers, "noooo-- no-- what-- my gatekey--"

Clint nods his head, giving Wisdom a few swift pats on the back before coming back over towards the kid and Fairchild. He glares down at the kid as he starts to murmur about gatekeys. "Yeah, well hate to break it to you, but the City looks down on interdimensional beasts of destruction," he growls at the kid as it becomes clear that he, possibly knowingly, summoned the big rock troll. He shakes his head and then changes his perspective to the redhead.

"So. What outfit you work with?" he asks bluntly.

Caitlin looks to Clint as he questions her and hesitates a moment, before shaking her head. "None. I'm umm....ex special forces." she lies rather badly. "I...don't suppose you have a spare shirt on a jacket or something do you?" she asks, fingering whats left of her once expensive form fitting body armor. Well...used to be expensive. The duct tape probably hurt the resale value. "So you guys are military?"

Useless Punk curls up on the ground in a ball of woe and shame. Because-- he's stupid, but he's not stupid enough to run. Not considering the falling ash.

Pete, on the other hand, finally unfolds, but doesn't get up. He sprawls on the ground, facing up, and closes his eyes. "SHIELD," he answers. SHIELD despite being British. Maybe it's like with Black Widow: honeybadger don't care your country. "You can have my shirt. There are many holes in it."

The cicadas finally fade in again, and after them, the birds. Then the closer car sounds.

Clint rifles through his head a proper response, opening his mouth before Pete comes up and interrupts his lie. Well, that cats out of the bag. "But if you tell anyone, we'll have to kill you." Beat. "That's a joke," he assures, before reaching into his pants pocket and pulls out his phone, glaring down at the kid before he walks off. "Belroy? Barton. Look buddy, you did me a solid, so I wanted to give you a heads up on a serious pile of weirdness that Wisdom and I just came across..." he says as he walks away from the other two and the punk.