Summary:Cessily helps local firefighters stop a blaze, with the help of a giant green elephant named Gar. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Cessily was walking back to Xavier's after visiting Brian Freeman in the safe house, bringing him some video games and things, as well as the girl, and her parents. A small care basket, and the like. As usual, when in public, Cessily stuck to clothing that mostly obscured her metallic features. Today it is a pair of jeans, a long jacket, a hood pulled over her features and gloves on her hands. She is moving down the street at a reasonable pace, back to the parking lot when she hears something that makes her nearly instantly upset.
"Quick, get the mutie!"
For a moment, Cessily is -sure- they're talking about her. But, no. Instead, it's a gang of about twelve older boys, probably no older than 18 - and they're chasing a similiarly aged young boy whose green and scaled skin suggests his mutancy has -something- to do with the water where he'd be graceful. But he's on the streets of New York. And his clothes have been torn, tattered. And he's running rather clumsily. The boys chasing him all carry something. A couple, baseball bats. Others pipes that they bang and clatter, creating a ruckus as they chase him. Two have knives, and another has a chain. "Don't let him get away."
Cessily quickly starts running in their direction, her own fears of being discovered forgotten in lieu of one thing: protecting someone.
The scaled kid bolts for the nearest alley, but recent construction has required a 15-foot-tall fence to be set up here, and it is new enough to be solid, without any holes or disconnected ties to peel back the interlocked steel links.
The kid slams against the fence, ten whirls around to see the devil's dozen slow down, seeing that he has nowhere to go.
The leader grins. "End of the line. We get to show you what we do to muties…"
Cessily is close enough to see it. Two guys bringing up the rear are suddenly jerked upward, yanked up into the darkness above the dim lights mounted on the wall without them making a sound…and suddenly the dozen can barely field a baseball team.
She doesn't have time to think about the two guys being jerked into the darkness. Whoever it is doing that isn't her enemy, and is probably helping her. Her training with the X-Men tells her that much. She instead focuses on the immediate danger, then.
"Which 'mutie' are you getting?" Asks Cessily, the disdain and irritation in her voice quite clear. She throws back her hood to show her shockof bright red hair - and the more shocking silver skin, and solid silver eyes. Her arms extend, and they both turn into 'liquid' metal, flowing from her impossibly to wrap around two of the boys and secure their arms to their sides. "I do not want to hurt you," she tells them. "But you are going to leave this boy alone." Determination, in her voice, too. She's faced far worse than this.
The leader, Mick, turned to see ANOTHER mutie. They were coming out of the woodwork! She had Ricky and Mike…wait, where were Jonas and Mitch?
"You guys! RUSH HER!"
The other teenagers don't even blink. Once they are in a fight, they are IN it, and they were going to try and do as much damage as they could.
Rollie dropped his pipe and pulled out his dad's pistol, a reliable 1911 Colt. He had some idea that he was John Wick, and these two were monsters. He aimed the pistol…except it wasn't a pistol anymore. It was a web-designed boxing glove that coated his hand AND the gun. He couldn't pull the trigger, as stupid as that was—the hammer was bound in place. And then someone yanked him against the wall under the fire escape and webbed him to the brick face.
Rollie looked into a wide-eyed masked face and the fight was out of him for the night.
Spider-Man turned and called out, "Where you guys GOING? The party's right here!" As more than a couple looked to him, he webbed two of them together with a blaast of webbing that pushed them against the wall and glued them to it.
Okay, so it wasn't Anya. She'd thought it -was-, at the sign of the webbing'd boxing glove, for a brief moment. That doesn't mean she's any less happy. She pushes the two she has corralled together, so they literally knock heads, and even as someone sinks one of those knives into her side, she just turns and looks at him.
She says, calmly, "That won't work. Sorry." Her right arm turns, then, into a long and wicked looking sword. Off-handedly, she tells him, "And, mine's bigger."
Her other hand forms into a blunt metallic ball, and she swings her arm upward to slam into his chest and knock the wind out of him to take him out of the fight. The dirty dozen are quickly becoming a very paltry few. Mostly thanks to Spider-Man. "You should be ashamed of yourselves."
Mick sees his good time out with the guys turning into a rout. They were half-down already, and Spider-Man was the guy with the price on his head and he was STILL out on the street.
He turned to the lizard-boy and raised his baseball bat. "At least I'll get YOU…" he says, moving towards Lizard-Boy…
And then his body pitches forward as his feet snag something and inertia keeps the rest of his body going. His arms flail as he hits the street on his belly. THEN the webs cover his entire body up to his neck. Another webline snags the baseball bat and it is casually yanked into Spidey's hand. He turns to the others, thwacking the bat into his other hand with a telltale smack and yells, "From here on out, it's BROKEN BONES for anyone stupid enough to stick around!"
A baseball bat slams against Cessily's back, but that doesn't do anything either. Instead, she turns, and levels a kick, directly between the boys legs. Then, she twists and uses a simple martial-arts toss to pitch him into the other trying to run away.
"The rest of you had better get out of here. Because I'm about to call the police. And if you're still around when they get here - well. I'm happy to report that hate crime is a very serious crime. So you might want to move. And rethink the next time you decide to have some fun."
She pulls out her phone. And she starts snapping pictures of the boys. "And if you don't? If I -ever- see you doing this again? Or hear about it? I'm posting these pictures on social media. So. All. Of. Your. Friends. And. Your families. Will. Know."
Being arrested is not a serious worry for some of them. But there are two who are still ambulatory who are 18 and can be tried as adults, so they run.
The others realizes that if the cops don't come for them, their parents will. So THEY run.
"Soon, the only ones left who aren't webbed to something are Spider-Man, Cessily, and the kid, who is huddled against the fence.
Spidey walks over to him, one gloved hand held out. "Hey…you're okay."
The kid looked at him, then hugged him fiercely. Spider-Man looked down at him, then patted his shoulders. "Hey, man…it's okay. You're safe." He pointed to Cessily. "She saved you."
Cessily smiles, returning her hands to - well, hand-shapes. She confides, "I don't think they're going to bother you again, for awhile. I'm sorry that happened. Most people aren't assholes, like that. But enough are that, well, it can be hard. Trust me, I know." Of course she knows. She's literally liquid mercury. "It's okay to be mad about it. But, there are a lot of good ways you can express that. Don't let them bait you. Okay? Go home. Be with people who love you." She touches the boys shoulder, "But if it does happen again? Well. Just lead them to water, yeah?" She winks.
Then she looks up at Spider-Man. She exhales, and smiles at his praise. "I had a little help," she conceeds very willingly. "I thought you were A—Spider-Girl for a minute. Thank you."
Spidey looks down at himself. "Ah, I was in the neighborhood."
The kid backs up, then looks around. "What if they come back…?" he asks uncertainly.
Spider-Man looks at him, then at Cessily. "Well, I suppose we could walk the guy home, couldn't we, miss?"
"We could," agrees Cessily, warmly. Besides, she'd not met Spider-Man before. And the boy could use a friend, and some support. She tells the boy, "I'm Cessily, by the way. And he's Spider-Man. Pretty cool guy, despite what the papers say. Lead the way. We'll make sure you get hom safe."
She goes to pick up her gloves, telling the boy, "I'm not afraid of who I am. I'm not afraid to go out. But, I know what it's like to not want to be stared at all the time. Hoodies are really good for that. Don't work so well in the summer, though," she admits. "Hats can help, then. And long sleeves shirts. Light fabrics."
She sidelongs a glance to Spider-Man, "Must be a pretty great neighborhood then, with you around to keep an eye on it. Glad there's people like you."
Spider-Man chuckles. "I'm just a guy who just…jumps in. Because i can't do nothing." He looks to the kid, who has extricated himself from the hug and is walking towards the street. "What's your name, son?"
"They call me Gecko," he says, his improving humor stalling slightly.
"Not what they call you. What's your name?"
The kid pauses, allowing them to catch up. "Roger."
"Roger, Roger," Spidey says with a grin. "Lead on." He looks back to Cessily. "Nice ta meet ya. That was impressive, what you did."
"Oh, it wasn't much. I didn't really want to hurt them. I don't like fighting. I know how to fight, though," she says, quietly, a bit self-conscious about Spider-Man's praise to her efforts. "But I know when it's needed."
Her head looks to Roger as they move through the streets, and head into the residential section. "Roger, Roger? Really?" Cessily giggle,s just a little. "Wow. Lame." Then, she looks back to the kid. "Promise me something, though, okay? That you won't let those jerks keep you down. It's smart to run away from a fight you know you can't win. Just don't let them keep you down. Because, to me? You're a pretty cool kid. And I bet you have some really amazing skills. And, I'm not talking about what you can -do-. I'm talking like, skills. Here." She taps her head with a slight metallic ping of metal-on-metal.
Roger looks back and smiles. "Don't worry. I can swim REAL fast!"
Spider-Man chuckles. "I learned a little sparring, but at best, my fighting style can be classified as less Tae Kwan Do and more Anything Works, Do. The two big things I have are a lot of quick and my Spidey-Sense. And as a great salvage expert once said, quick is what counts."
"Bet you could probably get a job doing something really cool, like deep sea diving, or marine life research, ocean mapping, or even something cool like joining the Coast Guard. Keeping people safe, saving lives," Cessily provides as means of focus for the boy.
"Maybe you should take some classes, then. That's what I did." Except her classes were with the X-Men, and in the Danger Room. Still, that's not something that she mentions at all, outside of Xavier's, or those who have ties to it.
Roger looks thoughtful. "I bet YOU could teach me something, Spider-Man!"
Spidey stops. "…Me? What about your parents?"
Roger shrugged. "Mom left. Blamed Dad for…this. Dad works, but he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't think I know, but I know. You could teach me how to be a hero, Spidey!"
Spider-Man walked over to him. "You want me to teach you how to be a superhero?"
"A GOOD superhero." Roger grinned, revealing rows of sharp teeth.
*Don't commit. Who are you to teach ANYONE?* His brain seemed to be more nervous than he was.
"…are you going to do what I tell you to?"
Roger grins and nods, elated.
"Then you have to tell your dad about this. That you are going to do your chores and your homework, before I teach you anything. To be a good SUPERHERO…you have to be a good PERSON, first."
"He's right," Cessily agrees with Spider-Man. "You already showed you could use your brain, Roger. But, if you aren't a good person, and have a committment? Then, you're just doing it because it's easy. And, being a superhero, a GOOD superhero, isn't easy. It's actually one of the hardest things to do."
Roger looked doubtful. "And if I do this…you'll teach me. You PROMISE."
Spidey reached into his backpack and pulled out a small red disc with eight stubby legs. "Keep this. I'll contact you with it. You can beep me with it by squeezing it twice."
Roger takes the tracer and nods. "Okay. I'll tell my dad. And if he says it's all right…"
"I'll teach you. You have my word."
Rogers grins and sticks the tracer in his pocket.
Spidey smiles to Cessily. "I'm a pushover, aren't I?"
"It looks like," agrees she, with a smile, and a helpless shrug, clearly humored.
%xessily looks back to Roger, "Your dad sounds like a really good person. Be proud of him. And, make him just as proud of you, as you are of him. You're lucky to have each other."
Then, as they come upon Roger's house, Cessily waits at the sidewalk for Roger to get into the home, looking over to Spider-Man. "I think you really just made his day. You're already one of the best people I've ever met." And she means it.
Spidey sighs as he watches Roger go into his house. "He needs someone, Cessily. And if I can do something, then I'm going to do it. Maybe I can teach him that he's as valid as any other person. That's what he REALLY needs to know."
|ROLL| Gar Logan +rolls 1d2 for: 2
It was a quiet evening in Queens when a large explosion rocks the Robert Taylor homes. A massive fire has broken out in one of the apartments, and is starting to spread throughout the tentament. Police and Fire units were already on the scene, battling the blaze. But there's reports of several people trapped in their apartments, the burgular bars on the windows keeping them from escaping. Part of the roof has already collapsed on the building, causing it to cut off the hallway as an escape venue.
As of yet, there are no heroes on the scene - instead, it's just the grim determination of New York's bravest and finest that are currently fighting the fires, trying to get ladders to the various apartments and using crowbars to force the window bars off. There's more windows that ladders, though.
Cessily had been on her way back from visiting the Freeman family when she'd seen the flames and heard about it. She'd dashed over to watch the fire-fighters doing their best to both control the blaze and secure the lives of those who were now trapped inside and had no other way out.
She notices that the ladders, presently, at least as many as can be up are and a girl and her mother pounding on the window for help, sllouetted by the fire in the background of their 4th story apartment.
She doesn't waste time. Knowing that the fire department only has so many hands available, she pushes herself past the line and the fire crew despite their protests, and as one firefighter grabs her arm she goes amphorous, the hand passing through her like water as she pushes forwards.
She hates doing it. She SO hates doing it. But, there's no time to think about it. The next moment, her clothes are falling off as she goes fully amphorous and liquid, nearly shapeless save for her head. Then, the mass of liquid mercury that is she begins to slide up the building as if she were running up it.
"You can't go in there!" the fire fighter starts to shout at Cassily, but she literally slips away and starts into the building and up the stairs. In the meantime, there's other help that is arriving on the scene. A sparrow lands in a nearby tree. It'd be a perfectly normal sparrow, except for the fac that it's completely green. "I just flew in to help, and boy are my arms tired!" the bird announces, before transforming into a young man, also very much green.
The fire marshall looks over to the young man, and frowns. "Only if you can help pull off bars." He points to a building wall that's turned into the courtyard - they haven't been able to get a ladder to it - the building's courtyard makes access much harder.
"Can do!" Gar announces, and stepping forward, he becomes a very large green elephant, and starts to rumble towards one of the barred window. It's on the third floor. There's a family trapped in the living room, and the ladders haven't been able to get to them yet. They're spraying water towards the window to try to keep the flames at bay and douse down the roof.
In the hallway near the door, the roof has partially collapsed, preventing the fire fighters from getting through to the room where the family is trapped. They're working on it with a hose and axes - but it's clear they can't get any further at the moment.
Straight up the buildings side, the amphorous mass clings, like some kind of shapeless silver-infused slug. With a human head. And, crowbars for arms. The girl wrenches the window open, and then those crowbar arms lash around both the mother and child. "Trust me," she tells each of them.
And then she pulls them, gently, over the window and her arms become more like endless tendrils, mercury ropes, one-by-one. Cessily isn't strong, but between being able to cling to the buliding for support and letting the weight do a slow free-fall she's able to control it and not drop the two other females, setting each on the ground and then pulling her 'arms' back into herself.
She looks, then, at the massive green elephant. Green. Elephant. That's a first. But there's not much time to wonder.
She can can see into the hallway and the door that the firefighters are working through, and she pools into the room, underneath the collapsed mass of firey debris that'd trapped the other two into the room and into the hallway.
"I can slip under," she tells them, a head upon a silver shapeless mass.
After saving the first two women, Cessily's work is just beginning for the evening. Pulling away the bars with his trunk, Gar wrenches back the window and lifts his trunk to peer within. "Hi." he greets the family within. "So I'm rescuing you tonight. My name's Changeling!" he offers. "So I have a lot of trunk space, so come on down." he offers to them. And slowly, begrudgingly, the family starts to climb down the elephant trunk.
Cessily's offer is met for a moment with a look of worry. "I take you don't have training in this…" one of the fire fighters says, but the other gives a grim nod of his head. "We think the source of this fire is on the other side of this pile." he finally relents, stepping aside to let the woman slip under the debris - it's going to be a bit of a maze, as it's all partially collapsed and a jumble of cieling, support beams and burning roof.
"No," agrees Cessily, "I don't. But the fire doesn't hurt me, and I won't be poisoned by the smoke." She remains the mass of shapeless mercury, however - because the alternative is far, far, far worse for her. She can't go human now! Her clothes are back there!!
"I can try and drag the hose through, and put it out?" She offers. "Let me get through, and then I'll slide my hand back. Don't worry about me. I'll be okay," she promises them, earnestly. "But I'll need your guidance to put it out the quickest way possible," she agrees. She isn't the expert, or, perhaps, doesn't even consider herself the 'real' hero here. She has little to risk - they have almost everything to put on the line.
With that, she dillutes herself down to a thin mass, and begins to weave and work her way through the debris and rubble by fitting underneath the door, climbing whatever she needs to climb, and slipping through whatever cracks or crevices she needs to to get to 'the source'.
She's able to weave and work her way through the fire and debris. When she arrives in the room that is the source of the fire, she'll find a young girl sitting there. She's still in her nightclothes, sobbing. Her arms are pulled around her knees from where she's seated, and around her, she's completely engulfed in flames, though none of the flames actually seem to be touching her. She's clutching a teddy bear in her arms.
When the form arrives in the room, she looks up, her eyes full of fear - though they are alight with flame. "I-I didn't mean to." she says to Cessily. "I.. I just wanted to watch a little more television.. and my babysitter wouldn't let me.." The room is blasted thoroughly, hardly visible as a room anymore. The walls are charred, destroyed. There's no sign of the babysitter.
Of course it's a mutant. Or a meta. Cessily says, quietly, concern in her voice, "I know, sweetie. It's okay. You need to be a Big Girl, now. Okay? Can you do that for me?" The face, all silver and inhuman, smiles, warmly. She's not been through what the girl has. But, she knows, certainly, what the waking horror of transformation is like.
"I know it's really hard. But I think you can do it. And, maybe your bear can help you? Just think of something that makes you happy, okay? Tell me. What -does- make you happy?"
Cessily holds this conversation as if there were no fire around either of them.
"I like playing on the playground. The swings. I like to sing, and play games and tell stories.." the girl responds as she turns her attention to the woman. "I'm Paula." she offers to the form. Because she's being nice. And it's nice to talk to someone. Even if the world is burned down around them. As she talks to Cessily, the flames start to calm down around her, flickering out.
From the other side of the room, there's a tapping at the window. "Hello?" comes the announcement of the large green elephant that's tapping at the window, checking to see if anyone is alive.
The girl gives a squeak, and the flames increase, shaking the room further around them.
"Do you like elephants, and the circus? Have you ever been to the circus? There's a big, friendly elephant just outside. You can slide down his trunk. Just like you'd slide down a slide on a playground," assures Cessily, in a friendly manner.
Then, Cessily holds out her hand. "Come on. You don't have to be scared. I'm your friend. Just think of your playground. And slides. And, how much fun you're going to have," she continues, as if none of the hell was crashing down around them.
"You can be a Big Girl for that, can't you? And, Big Girl's aren't scared of elephants, are they? Not funny, fun ones, like green elephants. Will you come with me?"
There's hesitation. "Like Dumbo?" Paula asks, before he moves to rise to her feet. She's decided to trust Cessily in this. Reaching to take her hand, the girl lets Cessily lead. The floor around them is cool - as if it was never on fire in the first place. Her teddy bear is held in her other hand, dangling down.
At the window, Gar's trunk pulls back on the bars, ripping them from the wall, and opening the window. The large elephant, completely green, stands in the courtyard, and notices the two. "Hi!" comes the greeting from the creature. A green elephant that can speak English. Go figure, right. "Do you know why I can't use a computer?" he asks the two.
He gives them a couple of seconds, and the answers for them. "Because I'm afraid of mice!"
Cessily giggles, though whether it is for the girls sake or because Cessily really thinks it's funny is unclear. But, her intent is clear. Calm the girl down. Distract her. Get her to calm her powers. Make the pyromancy diminish, go away.
"I'm Cessily. And, you know what? You're a pretty Big Girl. But I need you to do one thing for me, before we slide down Mr. Elephant here. I need you to give me a hug, and I need you to not be scared anymore, okay? Because it'll be okay. I promise."
Past the girl, Cessily gives the big green elephant a meaningful look of both thanks, and hope, before looking back down to Paula. "Can you do that? Can you give me a hug, and make the flames go away? Then we can slide down the elephant, just like at the park."
"You're pretty shiny.. I mean pretty." Concentrate, Gar. The silvery girl can wait. Right? The Elephant listens to the conversation between the two of them. "Yeah, come on, take a slide, and I'll tell you why the elephant crossed the road." he says with a glance towards Cessily.
The girl looks from Gar to Cessily, and then she gives a nod. Stepping into Cessily, Paula gives her a hard hug, starting to cry quietly, as the flames around her die - and she starts to pull in the flames form the rest of the building into her. After a few seconds, the fire in the apartment is completely out. She's not scared - not anymore. She's going to trust Cessily, even as she turns her attention to the elephant.
"Just like at the park." she agrees with Cessily, as she starts to take a step forward to climb on the trunk to head down.
"I've got you." Gar promises the child, keeping Paula close, before waiting to see if Cessily will be following her down or heading back into the building.
Cessily, indeed, goes down with Paula, though she's not reverting into her human form, not by a longshot. Once she reaches the ground, and takes a few moments to get Paula into the hands of some EMTs, she relays to the fire chief what happened after a quick pat on the trunk for Gar to tell him how much she apprecated his efforts.
"She didn't know. Nobody did. I really hope nobody got hurt," she says, "But I'm glad I could help. Listen. Mostly? It's really important you keep her away for now for anyone that might lay blame on her. Or accuse her of doing it on purpose. She knows she did it, and she knows she couldn't control it. But I've helped, a little, with that. At least for now. Keep her calm. You can talk to her about it, but talk to her like you would a friend who you care for a very lot who just did something accidentally. Get a child psychologist if you need to. And, please, please, make sure her mom and dad know it wasn't her fault."
Then, if mercury could blush? She probably would be. "Um. Could. Someone please get me some clothes?" She asks, very small, and very, very sheepishly, then.