2013.07.11 - Hammer Down in Hammer Bay

It's the last bastion (note: lower caps) where mutant and human mix upon the island of Genosha. It's a teeming mass of humanoid shaped bodies that fill the streets; fur, scales, feathers abound. Excited conversation rises in the small, newly opened stalls in the market area as fruits and vegetables are sold. To walk the streets, one must actually turn sideways to pass by groups here and there as they gather.

As being openly mutant becomes a more and more familiar sight, the stares turn from disgust and fear to fascination. Mind, the stares are still there, and there are some mutants that are still filled with something of a self-loathing, which is directed upon their brethren. But now, it's a little more few and far between.

There is, however, an electricity in the air. People are still a little uncertain about the future, about their future. Particularly those humans that now are almost driven to ground. Where once they 'ruled', they're more of a second class citizen. Third class, perhaps. If they're lucky.

Meetings in the dark of night, however, begin to find silent support, and for the first time, there is manpower enough to try and take a position away from the mutants in the Bay. Let those who would get in the way of Humans First die. Mutants give no quarter, so...

Just another night in Genosha. Cool, crisp wind, the scent of the ocean, the sense of absolute freedom. Mystique's made very little attempt to conceal her true form around Bastion. She doesn't have to, she doesn't want to. With the setting of night she becomes a creature of nightmares once more, the cobalt hue of her flesh and the black dye of her clothing vanishing into the darkness until all that remains are a pair of solid, backlit yellow eyes.

Exactly like the pair of eyes following along beside her.

She may not have her son's innate darkvision capabilities but she is able to morph her eyes to become something greater, easily matching the capabilities of her offspring simply by choosing to do so.

In doing so, the evening is truly a beautiful thing to behold.

She had taken him to the more noteworthy church of Hammer Bay during the daytime hours. Now, feeling that their time together on Genosha is coming to an end, she's chosen to spend the rest of the evening with him as well. Not without some manner of support, however. Olena will be out there. Consider it an exercise in shadowing others. Kurt would not have been told that she's out there. If he happens to catch sight of her, she has failed her training tonight.

Olena doesn't have the demonic ability to blend into shadow. She has only her dark leathers, a hood to darken her masked features still further, and the ability to stay well away from the pair and still observe. Even hear, when the wind is right. Hyper-senses can be highly advantageous.

Consequently, she rests for a moment in the shadow of a seawall that rises up at the edge of the city, but is still high enough to allow her to overlook the market and follow the two pairs of eyes that glimmer as the blue mutants progress through the busy market. (Follow the bouncing yellow balls!)

She's armed for bear, tonight. Arrows, firearms, blades. And she's got a vantage point that will let her use any of them quite effectively.

It's the evening that opens up that whole world for him. Colours burn bright in the dim light, those yellow eyes taking on the luminous quality. He easily fades into shadows; it's easy for him. As natural as breathing. As his mother beside him, it does make the blue fuzzy elf more difficult to see, or rather, to judge as to where he is, exactly.

Kurt is unaware, then, that Olena tracks them, content to looking through the marketplace and the wares offered. At least at this juncture, he doesn't. Looking at his side where Raven accompanies him, he offers something of a lopsided smile. "It's strange, you know.. I'm not sure quite if I'll get used to the idea of all of this." It's an odd feeling; as his shadowing is in effect, there isn't the urge to use it for defense. For hiding. It is simply being expressed as part of him; who and what he is.

"If I do come back, mother, I'll have to spend more time with the Church und help it." A decision, then, and a motivation to return. As if his mother's presence wasn't enough for him?

Now, the humans begin to make their move. There is rustling in the markets, whispers here and there.. and some of the humans begin to make ready, finding their positions. Furtive messages are sent. First target is in sight. A mutant merchant who sells breads to mutants first, and crusts to the human children.. for a great deal more than what it's worth.

A soft *pfffft* sounds, and all of a sudden, there's a splash of blood that covers part of the street; red blood and grey.. and flakes of white skull are carried off.

It's not the sound of the gunshot, no.. it's the results that begin to make mutants in the area move.. and quickly. Screaming. Those around the area are unaware of exactly what is causing the ruckus.. and simply make their steps a little faster.

"It's nice, isn't it?"

It's been a long time since Mystique has felt this right about things. Bastion is quickly becoming something of an oasis within her turbulent life as a spy and occasional assassin. Here she's one of the local figureheads, known and recognized by many, personally responsible for countless new additions to the ranks of the Brotherhood. And she can have it all alongside Kurt.

"Any church would be fortunate to have one as devoted as you offering to help." It would also keep him out of trouble and make it that much easier for her to keep track of him. Nice how that all works out, isn't it? Especially if it will help keep him here.

There's always an underlining problem, however. Words which she had told others like herself in the past. 'People like us don't get to take root.' Even if she called Genosha her home she would never sit still for long.

In case she happens to need another reminder of this, soon she's given one in the form of wearing tiny flecks of gore upon herself.

Yellow eyes go wide, snapping first to the downed vendor then automatically tracing the path of the shot back to the rough direction of its source. With eyes like hers she's likely capable of seeing more than the shooter is.

She still needs to know that her son will be safe. "Ambush, go, go!"

Time to see if Olena's still awake out there.

Oh, Olena's awake. Indeed, ensconced where she is, she watches the whole thing unfold. As the first shot wings its way toward the hapless baker, she draws a sniper rifle instead of her usual bow (simply because of the distance). The human shooter's forehead explodes outward like an over-ripe melon as the sniper bullet rips into the back of his skull, tears through his greymatter, and bursts through the front. A second shot takes down a second shooter -- one unable to resist trying to get a bead on the famous Matriarch of Bastion. He never had the chance to even twitch his finger on the trigger.

After that, Olena drops straight down off the seawall, bouncing off the roofs of a couple of vendor kiosks and rolling to her feet. She roof-hops, drawing her bow as she runs, bolting for the slanted pinions of a grocer's building. Nice of them to provide a wall with its own ramp.

Home. It is an elusive concept for mutants. Particularly blue ones. With tails. Always moving, always looking behind him- at least in his youth. Now, Kurt looks forward. Ever forward.

Mostly.

"I would be glad to help." Call it penitence.

The next couple of steps are taken in comfortable silence before things go south.. and quickly. Kurt, too, is splashed with crimson and grey. The smell alone brings the bamfer's attention up and around to the realization it wasn't a passing storm cloud. Yellow eyes widen, and at the sound of his mother's voice, and the vision of the baker now fallen on the ground, twitching as the last messages reach the nerves, the fuzzy blue elf is gone in a *bamf*.

Kurt reappears on the side of a building, about 15 feet up and off the ground. There's another shooter, and from his vantage point, he can see the man with the gun. In the next second, however, the murderer's own brainpan explodes.. and the bamf is aborted. In its stead, a quick sign of the cross is made.

"Wo.." Where.. Now, he searches for a place.

But first?

"Mother!"

There's the wind-up, and the double-tap pitch. Mystique might have grinned at Olena's response time and marksmanship skills if Kurt wasn't present. And if there weren't more people waiting to attack.

Instead, Mystique sees an opportunity. A way to further their cause without difficulty. Kurt follows her instruction and bamfs out, which leaves her standing alone. In perfect view of the enemy. Narrowing eyes, glowing in the darkness.

Shoot me, you fools.

Another suppressed shot snaps out, she can almost see the flash of powder from behind the bullet as it leaps forth into the air.

SPAK!

There Mystique falls, dropping in a dead heap right next to a cart full of freshly picked fruit. A neat red hole dots her forehead, blood oozing forth from the wound. Gunned down.

Killed by the humans.

Or so she would have them believe.

An arrow takes the third shooter through the throat, even as Mystique collapses onto the pavement. From her vantage point, Olena can see the path of the bullet. And she blinks. That bullet... It shouldn't have hit Mystique. It just shouldn't have. The trajectory is all wrong. And Strilka knows trajectories. (Of course, 'all wrong' is a relative term, in this case. But, a near miss is still a miss, in her book. They ain't playin' horseshoes or tossing grenades here. Yet.)

But there the woman lies, in the middle of the street, looking for all the world like she's bleeding out. "Chortiv trakhanyy layno. Vy ublyudok vyrodky!" The expletives roll of her tongue like water, a sibilant hiss that's not quite subvocal. But, given her vantage point, it's also highly unlikely anyone else is going to hear her.

She leaps across a gap to another building and slides down a heavy pipe to bounce into another awning and spring away toward a slow-moving truck that's acting as cover for some of the human vigilantes.

Kurt's not far from his mother, certainly. He doesn't have the benefit of seeing trajectories. There's always the possibility of more shooters. There are always opportunistic creatures that like nothing better than to take advantage of chaos to deal yet more damage. To create more terror.

Now.. the elf watches as his mother crumples to the ground, and in the next second, Kurt teleports to her side, his tail whipping rapidly side to side, his fangs bearing against any and all comers even as he kneels beside her 'body'.

He attends her before looking for the beast that did this to her. His words come rapidly, softly.. and he's fighting to keep himself calm. But, his heart is in his mouth, pounding a rapid staccato, and he's fighting back tears that threaten to cloud his eyes. "Bleiben noch Mutter. Ich bin hier und du wirst leben." ''Stay still, mother. You're going to be okay."

Glowing yellow eyes rise from his mother's stricken body, and those fangs are more obvious in the darkness as he searches for the shooter. They can't hide from him forever.

Now, however, the humans that are responsible begin to move, and quickly. Messily. Stalls are pushed out of the way, wares thrown into the streets down the road.

If only Mystique were psychic. She could tell Kurt that she's alive and well, that it's all an act. But, to do so would ruin the illusion. It would lessen the impact of her performance.

Let the mutants converge. Let them rise above. By now the shooters that remain are few and they are seconds away from being hunted down, every last one, by a town full of x-gene enabled souls, many of them with an axe to grind.

These humans have nowhere left to run. The anger and hatred which is now being pooled against them only grows by the second.

While all of this happens, there she lies, bleeding in silence. Her pulse has slowed to the softest of interrupts, just enough to keep herself alive and conscious. She doesn't need much. It's like holding one's breath, with a little practice she can 'stay under' for a very long time.

''Find them. Kill them.'' She doesn't need a radio or a megaphone to relay the message. The simple act of her falling down in the street relays the command better than her words ever could.

And then, just when the humans think they've killed one of the figureheads of Bastion, reporting in their success before they get destroyed? That's when she will rise, renewing the conviction of her own kind. Mutants will not be put down so easily.

Strilka is, it seems, developing something of her own reputation in Hammer Bay. There isn't a single human left that welcomes the sight of her when she has her bow in her hand. She pops a small sphere the size of a ping-pong ball out of a pouch on her belt. Then, she slings her bow across her chest, swings over the side of the truck, hanging on with one hand, and raps on the door with the other. The driver turns his head as she appears in his mirror, his eyes going wide. He opens his mouth to swear, wrenching the wheel to the right and careening into another set of market stalls. Sphere in hand, Strilka smacks him hard across the temple with sharp knuckles that curl around the sphere, her boots braced against the door and her other hand tight around the handhold. As his head snaps and his mouth opens in pain, she pops the sphere into his mouth and slams her fist into his nose.

His head snaps back a second time and she drops away, onto the counter of another stall. She rolls down behind it, unslinging her bow. The truck's cab explodes in a brilliant flash of incredibly bright white light accompanied by yellow and orange flames and billowing black smoke.

The archer smiles, looking out between the drapes of the stall. "Tse dlya Mystique, ublyudok."

Thready. Weak. That's all Kurt can discern of his mother's vital signs. He's helpless at this injury, and he looks it. Anger and dread fight for primacy upon those blue, fuzzy features, and he looks more and more the angry demon.

As people begin to realize the import around her, the screaming stops, even if the crying continues. A couple of brave souls attempt to venture closer to the stricken metamorph, only to be sent back. They're not there to help. Just stare.. and her son won't have it.

Those humans, however, that run as if all hell is about to break loose and chase them?

Suddenly, Kurt is gone from Mystique's side. That sends a couple of people back once again; demon! ''No.. mutant.''

Landing in front of a couple that are running hellbent for leather, those fangs make an appearance again, and he reaches forward with three fingered hands, grabbing the pair, his tail whipping in something of a frenzy. It comes around and grabs a large pole from the awning that fell, and looks ready to pound the pair into pulp. He lifts the stick.. and for a moment, it hangs in the air.

Instead, however, Kurt changes his mind and slams the two men togther, hard enough for each of them to get a good concussion, and drops them.. opening his hand theatrically, and turns away.

The crowd watching may yet do something to them as they're whipped into something of a minor frenzy.

A doctor then runs forward, taking his opportunity to take care of Mystique, now that word is beginning to travel, and the blue demon of a son.. spawn? is absent her side.

Violence, explosions, this here is the hallmark of a classic skirmish of the masses. All that's missing is the gas canisters and molotov cocktails. Mystique prefers the absence of those two, they tend to lead to riots and a lot of fire damage.

She rather likes having this market here.

She can tell that the fighting's about over merely by the sounds it happens to be responsible for. Between the elimination of humans and the crowd which forms around her, she calls it safe to end her possum act.

It's all in the act. Solid yellow eyes pop wide open. The wound to her forehead slowly melts away until flawless blue flesh remains. She could grin and say something mean like 'psyche!' but moments of opportunity should never be squandered. Instead a hand carefully comes up to her forehead, glaring as she moves to sit up.

"Who dares!"

No, the entire market wasn't just played by a master metamorph. She was caught by surprise in an assassination attempt. Swear to god.

And quite possibly to Kurt.

Whatever the crowd may wish to do to those hapless humans, Strilka has other plans. And, remarkably, it doesn't involve killing them. She leaps the counter of the kiosk that gave her cover and strides forward. She's a lot smaller than many on the street, but navigating the crowd is child's play to her, nonetheless. And when she stands above the pair, between them and the menacing crowd, her bow is drawn.

"Stop," she says in English, regarding the furry, feathered, and variously-coloured faces around her. Her lip curls in a fair approximation of one of Mystique's snarling smiles. "Is tempting to kill them here, da?" she says. Her voice carries. To hell with staying hidden from Kurt any more. She doubts Mystique would mind this show.

The crowd stirs in response. The only reason they don't approach closer is because most of them know how preternaturally quick Magneto's (Mystique's!) Black Archer is.

"I do not doubt they will pay for crimes here, today." She looks down at them with hard, dark eyes. "But, first, they must be tried." Her smile is sharp enough to deserve fangs, though she has none. "Take them to Bastion, moÃ¯ druzi." (My friends.) "We will give them to Magneto to judge."

Oh, look who's playing at stateswoman.

The humans are slumped in the pile where Kurt left them, his back turned to the two unconscious men now. The big stick is tossed away before he's *bamf* back at his mother's side.

The stirring of the blue metamorph gains a shocked look from her son; the closing of the bullet wound upon her forehead is stared at with disbelieving eyes. ''C'mon, Kurt.. didn't you know she could do that? THINK!''

"Mother.." At least she didn't keep the 'scar' as a rally point?

"Mother?" Relief is there upon his face, and he rises from his crouch beside her holding out a hand to support her as she finds her seat, and her voice.

Olena's appearance, and her demands for justice sends another electric jolt through the crowd, feeding more to a yet still hungry crowd. Mystique lives.. and the humans that did it deserve death! But now..

Justice!

Mutant justice.

But.. to bring them to Magneto is a death sentence. Of course, even Kurt would be hard put to granting mercy to those who would kill innocent mutants.

At Olena's words, the blue elf simply turns his back. He'll not argue.

Instead? He offers a three-fingered hand to his mother to aid and support her should she wish to stand.

Sure, Mystique could have used this moment as a way to exact a little extra revenge upon her son for past sins. Even she's not (always) that petty. Tonight's performance is for the benefit of the crowd, for the mutants that now call this their home. It wasn't her intention to twist the blade another quarter turn through Kurt's heart.

No risk, no reward.

With the tell-tale return bamf she focuses upon his familiar form, seeing the mix of emotions lurking beneath the surface of his stare. Before she says anything at all she wraps her arms around his shoulders. Only then does she whisper "I'm sorry" into his ear. "I was trying to distract them so they could be discovered."

And this, and that, and the other thing, but it's not lying if she's simply omitting the full truth, now is it?

"I wish that everything was peaceful and calm out here but the truth is that we still have a long and difficult journey ahead of us all. After tonight they will think twice before launching such a cowardly assault on us again."

As for Olena, she's earned herself another gold star. Why can't she find more mutant soldiers like that one? Obedient, efficient, and very, very quick on the draw. It's something to praise her for later, once Kurt has taken his leave of this island.

Olena smiles behind her mask as the crowd rises to help her 'escort' the two unconscious men back to the Bastion. The archer pauses a moment, looking around the market square at the carnage and destruction. That will need to be fixed, as well. She considers.

Raising her hand, she points to one of the mutants she recognizes as a member of the Brotherhood with a fairly smart head on his shoulders... but not so much ambition as to be a threat. "You. This place must be fixed. Find the Brotherhood. Help these people. We owe them that."

Yes. She's purposely making the Brotherhood look like good guys here. They are good guys here!

The man moves to obey and Strilka returns her attention to her prisoners. She pauses again, briefly, as she sees Mystique back on her feet. A wry smile touches her lips.

Metamorphs...

File that trick away for later, yes.

Giving her mentor a simple nod of acknowledgement, she turns back to her charges and gestures toward where Magneto's defacto court in this city resides -- not the Bastion itself, but close enough to an embassy to be considered just as good. The humans are gathered up and a defacto honour guard forms up around them.

Yes, those humans are as good as dead.

But the Brotherhood lives.