Summary:Changeling, Mercury and Wolfsbane find a missing child. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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Outside of the Cafe Wha? there's a bit of an oddity roaming around. A large green bloodhound is sniffling and snuffling at the ground. He's picked up the scent of one of the occupants within the coffee shop. He notices the shock of redhair inside the shop, and paws at the window, whimpering and wuffing loudly, even though he doesn't go past the 'No Pets Allowed' sign.
Within the shop, a barista approaches Cessily's table. "Miss? I don't know if that's your.. dog?" What do you call a large green bloodhound anyway? "…but he's disturbing some of the customers."
Cessily sent a text to a few of her friends at the mansion, asking if any had wanted to meet, since she'd just finished running a few errands in town. And now, here she was, the shop and waiting for at least one of them to arrive when the green bloodhound wanders in. The rather well-covered mercury girl shifts her features, wrapped in the hoodie towards the green dog and shakes her head, "I don't know where he came from, but I don't know him," she says, honestly. "Maybe he just wants something to eat?"
Rahne peers out the window at the green bloodhound, a cup of coffee at her lips. Her eyes flick from the dog to Cessily. A dog is a dog, no matter how green — to paraphrase Seuss. "Friend o' yours?" she asks the other redhead as she rises. She's a wolf half the time. She doubts this is any normal green dog. "We should see what it wants, whate'er the case," she says, flashing a crooked smile at her friend. "Thank ye, miss," she adds to the barista as she heads for the door.
When Rahne comes out, the green bloodhound bounces and then sits on his haunches, before he starts speaking. Not barking. Speaking. "I have a scent on one of the missing kids!" comes Gar's comment as he runs around Rahne. "Whoa. You're a …" then he slaps a paw over his mouth. No giving away secrets, right? He turns his attention back to Rahne. "Was there a girl with you? All silver. Kinda shiny. Moves around as a puddle a lot. She helped me a few nights ago at a fire, thought she could help with this."
He moves around Rahne again, snuffling at her again, curiously prickling at his brain, but he's trying really hard to stay on task.
Cessily follows Rahne out, curiously. She looks at the dog, somewhat quizzically. "I didn't see you at the fire," she says, "I mean, there was a weird green elephant. But, not a —," she frowns, not finishing her sentence any further before looking at the bloodhound, then looking at Rahne. After a few moments, she says, "I think we can trust him."
"And ye talk," Rahne says in response to 'Whoa, you're a…'. She's not terribly surprised, of course. He's a green dog. Chances were that there was something more to him than simple green-ness. "I think Cess'ly's the one ye were lookin' for. Care t' introduce us, Cess?" A nod to the other redhead. "Aye, I imagine so. Ye have a scent? Pardon a mo'."
And she shifts. Rahne Sinclair spent years being told she was evil because she was a mutant — and a werewolf in particular. She refuses to hide what she is now. Her long hair shortens to something resembling a bob around her neck. Her chin and nose elongate into a short muzzle. She doesn't have the same senses in were form as she does as a wolf, but her vision's somewhat better and she's much better at smelling her environment than she is as a human.
"Per'aps ye'd lead the way, then?"
When Cessily comes out, Gar pauses. "Uhm.. wow. You're much taller when you're not a puddle." the dog admits, struck for a moment, then he chuckles. "I was the green elephant too. Long story, lots of exposition. I'll explain later!" he finally decides, before his attention shifts to the other redhead.
"Yeah. If I change back, I'll lose the scent. Anyway!" the large green bloodhound pauses at Rahne. "You're a shifter too? That's so cool!" Gar offers to the woman, before turning his attention to the sidewalk. "The people that took the child - they passed by here not too long ago!" Turning to press his snout back to the ground, he wanders near the street before finally hitting again and brays, before Changeling is taking off down the street at a loping gait.
"I can't climb walls in human form," responds Cessily, sounding - uncomfortable. It was no secret to Rahne that Cessily rather didn't like her amphorous form due to her whole 'losing clothing' thing. It wasn't something she did lightly, at all. "And if I had stayed in there much longer, the heat would've started affecting me badly. It was all I could do to stay together then."
A pause, before she explains to Rahne, "There was an apartment fire. I ended up finding a girl, who had manifested a metagene and caused it. Pyromantic. I talked her down, and he was an elephant, which - kind of made it easier, to be honest, to talk her down. She liked slides," she explains.
Then, asks, "What child?"
"Keep yer hat on, Cess. Ye don't have the nose fer trackin'." Her smile as a werewolf is somewhat more threatening, but not intended as a threat. She just doesn't want Cess to step out of her comfort zone now. It's not necessary. "Let's go."
Rahne follows after Gar, reaching back to shift her jeans — freeing her tail from confinement. It's awkward having it stuck in there. Leaning forward she sniffs, trying to follow the scent he's caught — though in New York, even for a werewolf, it can be tough to untangle the braids of human scents. "Which one is it?" she asks him. "Male or female? How old?"
|ROLL| Gar Logan +rolls 1d20 for: 13
"Female. I was at a police briefing, and they had some of her items there. And caught the scent. Like, totally unexpectedly." Gar mentions as he moves down the street, and off the side street. "Maybe we should call a taxi?" he asks, turning his attention to the other two. The scent's there. It's faint - it's probably a good reason for Gar to still be in his bloodhound mode - using the powerful scent glands of the dog to hold the scent as long as he can.
"They said she was six, a pre-Ker at East Side Elementary." he rumbles. He paces, trying to pick up the scent again. When he hits, he starts on the path again.
"I don't have a hat," protests Cessily to Rahne, but somewhat cheerfully more than confused. In the meantime, she keeps up with the two changelings with a quick gait. "Wait, does this have something to do with the other boy? The one with the tatoos?" She asks Gar, her brows furrowing thoughtfully.
Rahne sorts through the scents available to her. Female human eliminates better than half of them, and picking out those that haven't yet hit puberty gets rid of about eighty percent of those remaining. Quite possibly more. It's New York. There are still plenty left. But it's a start. "Where'd ye pick up the scent? If it's here, we prob'ly shouldn't take a cab — we could lose it." Plus in her were form she's unlikely to be picked up. And if she is… well, cabs stink to canine noses.
"That's the one!" Gar says excitedly to Cessily. His tail wags with his words, as he sniffs around, and when he hits the scene, he makes a nod of his head towards Rahne to invite her over. "This one!" he paws at the ground. And once he knows that both of them are on the same page, he takes off again, Cessily behind them - the strangest dog-walker in all of New York.
It takes about twenty minutes of travel, but eventually they come to an alley off of a side street. Gar pauses in his gait, sliding to a halt and points. "..that way." his nose is aimed directly at the back entrance of a small closed down shop. "They're in there."
Cessily looks to the green hound, and then to Rahne. She exhales, as if exasperated but she knows what happened to the Freeman boy. Both of her armss flow and form into crowbars. She lodges each crowbar arm into the door of the shop, and she begins to wrench, and pry them open as best she can. "Little help, here, Rahne," she asks.
Rahne's easily able to pick up the scent once Gar points it out, and when he takes off, she's rapidly on his tail — though making sure that Cessily can keep up, of course. Upon arrival at the destination she sniffs around the door, investigating the other people, the 'They' to whom Gar is referring. "As ye say, Cess," she returns, taking hold of one of Cessily's arms and shoving with all her lycanthropic strength.
Now that he no longer needs to be a bloodhound, Gar shifts - he takes on his human appearance. He's young. And completely green. He gives his green hair a quick tossle, pushing some of it behind his elfin ears as a smile shows off pointed lower canines. "I thought I was supposed to get the door for you." Though now, as things are getting serious, he starts to settle down.
The doors give way with a creak and snap as the locks break and the door swings open, a rattling of a long forgotten bell over the frame announcing them. The shop looks like it may have once been a pharmacy - the shelves long since empty. A soda-shop style bar sits over to one side. In the back of the shop, there's noise, the muffled cry of a child.
An exhale, and Cessily moves forward, reforming her arms into thands again, and begins to move towards the muffled cries, saying quietly, "You both may want to go to something more friendly. I just - just hope this girl isn't —," like Brian Freeman. Scarred.
"Hello," she calls, quietly, but in a gentle tone. "We're here to help you."
Little girls, Rahne figures, are less likely to want to meet werewolves than pretty human girls. In a moment she's in her human form again, drawing up her pants in back now that her tail is no longer a concern. "Ye can get the door fer us next time," she tells Gar, flashing that crooked smile again, but soon she's following Cessily into the store, quietly. The girl may not be alone, and those with her might not be friendly.
|ROLL| Gar Logan +rolls 1d3 for: 3
|ROLL| Gar Logan +rolls 1d3 for: 2
As the two shift, Gar's eyes go up in alarm. "She's not alone!" he warns. And it's all the warning he's allowed to get out before the door opens. There's two denim crows. Both of them are armed. One with a pistol, the other with a shotgun. Behind them, the child in question is tied up and being prepared for something - there's at least one more Denim Crow within the storeroom.
Just like that, Gar shifts. A green jackrabbit is where he was a moment ago as he starts to speedily hop amongst the shelves, trying to draw the fire of the crow with the pistol, as the one with the shotgun aims towards Cessily, preparing to blast away at her.
Cessily is kind-hearted. Of that, there can be no dispute. But, she is also an X-Men, she's trained in the Danger Room. And she knows how to fight. At Gar's warning her right hand is already forming into a large steel ball.
As the man approaches her with the shotgun, Cessily twists - in a way that people shouldn't be able to twist. At the waist. 360 degrees, and fast. As she twists her body, her arm extends and the heavy metal ball, as large as a human head slams into the shotgunner's knees.
Mercury doesn't play around when a child's life it on the line. "You're not touching her," she says, vehementely.
Rahne's shifting even as Gar cries the warning. This time she shifts all the way to wolf form, and she lunges toward the man with the pistol — the one tracking the hare with his weapon. Her jaws open, long, sharp teeth ready to fasten on the man's arm — and while she doesn't bite immediately, the look in her eyes is all the warning he will get. If he doesn't escape her jaws or drop the weapon, he will have a broken arm at best. If he has an arm at all.
Mercury's strike slams into the shotgunner's knees, bringing him down, but not before he fires off a blast of buckshot towards the woman. The shotgun falls away as he gives a scream of pain. The pistol using Crow fires several rounds towards Gar as he leaps and bounces, before the green mutant shifts direction and springs towards the Crow. In mid-flight, he's shifting forms again, from hare to squid. "Eat tentacles!" he cries out as he slaps into the Crow's face and wraps his tentacles around, spraying ink directly into the man's face — just as Rahne latches on.
With a scream, the man drops the gun, trying to reach for a knife with his other hand. The blade that he pulls appears to be made of glass of all things, with a gold metal style hilt - it looks almost ceremonial in design, with a sun being eclipsed by the moon on the hilt.
Cessily's hand changes back to a fist, even as the shotgun shells merely go through her, like they might muddied water. "That," she says, calmly, "Won't work on me. Sorry." She leans down and solidly punches the man in the skull, intent on knocking him out. She's not about to kill anyone, afterall. But, his knees are going to be pretty screwed up for some time, and he might need surgery.
One threat down, and she looks around the room further to see how Rahne, and the — bloodhound-who-was-a-jackrabbit-and-now-is-a-squid is doing.
Well, she gave him a chance. Rahne's jaws clench on the arm in her mouth, hard, hard enough to break bone and yes, there will very likely be blood. And then she releases the arm and leaps back — because in the chance that he manages to retain enough control after having his flesh torn and bone pulverized, she doesn't want to be in range of that damned knife.
Slammed into by Cessily's fist, the man goes down hard, dropping the shotgun as he hits the ground and is very effectively taken out of the fight. Falling from the pistol man's face, Gar flops to the ground, turning back to his human form as he rolls away as Rahne goes crunch on the man's arm. He screams, and swipes the knife around wildly - he's unable to see with a faceful of ink - but it's clear he has some experience in blindfighting.
The last man within the storeroom with the girl still has not come out yet, but he seems to be hurrying, as if preparing for something. Taking a pendant from around his neck, he sets it down and reaches for a knife to raise up.
Part of being on a team is trusting your teammate. Cessily tells Rahne, "I'm going to get the girl," and heads forward, where she heard the girls cries, and where it appears something is still happening in that storeroom. She bursts in, looking around wildly, hoping to make it in time. As she sees the man with the knife her arm flows foward, turning into a three-pronged 'grabber' aimed for the knife-grabbing hand … hopefully she can make it in time!
Rahne yips at Cessily in response, acknowledging her words. She checks to see that Gar is okay, then dodges past the blinded man whipping around his knife. Cessily can handle the criminal. Rahne, a large red dog (yes, a wolf, but to a six-year-old 'large red dog' is probably easier to handle than 'wolf'), leaps to protect the girl, putting herself between the blade and the child.
|ROLL| Cessily Kincaid +rolls 1d20 for: 15
|ROLL| Rahne Sinclair +rolls 1d20 for: 2
|ROLL| Gar Logan +rolls 1d20 for: 5
Rahne does indeed manage to get between man and girl - and that's when she may realize that he was trying to cut himself instead of the girl. But with Rahne presenting a perfect flank for him to strike, he drives the gossamer blade into the girl's side - she may realize that the blade was made by magical means - which could be doubly worse for the wolven woman.
Cessily manages to strike the arm a moment later, ripping the man away from Rahne as he's knocked backwards.
Outside, Gar lays in a couple of rabbit punches on the guy that's moving to block the entrance when Rahne and Cessily get by him. While the man is blinded, he's stil able to fight well blind and strikes Gar in the shoulder, illiciting a yelp from the young man before he manages to drive his knee into the man's gut and double him over with a strike over his head.
The sound that the wolf emits is not a yip now, but a cry — and a loud one. She's bleeding from a deep cut to her side. She doesn't think any organs have been penetrated, but that will take a little while to heal. When Cessily pulls away the man she turns her head back toward them, shifting to were form. She heals better that way. "Are ye a'right, lass?" she asks the child, pressing a hand to her injured side.
"No!" Cessily hears Rahne's cry, and it both frightens, and infuriates her at the same time. She levels a punch towards the other denim crow to knock him out too, quickly, and then she's moving over to Rahne and the child, "Rahne?" Her first concern is her friend, and her concern is palpatable. Sure, Rahne could heal quickly, but that was a nasty wound.
"You're safe," Cessily tells the child. "WE've got you." Her metallic eyes flit between Rahne, and the child. "Is everything okay out there?" she calls out to Gar.
Gar gives the last crow a kick in the side, and clamps a hand to his shoulder. "Peachy-keen!" he calls out, though his own voice is strained as he makes his way in. The girl looks around in fear, and then clamps to Rahne. "I wanna go home!" she wails, loud and scared. She's alive. She's safe. That's what matters, right? As he makes his way over to the others, Gar looks between Cessily and Rahne. "…you two okay?"
The werewolf wraps one furry arm around the girl, lifting her carefully, straightening herself. "How'd ye like a ride on a green pony?" she asks, trying to conceal the pain in her voice. "We'll get ye home on a green pony." Gar, ye're gonna be a green pony. Sorry, boyo.
She'd hand the girl off to Cessily, but she's being clung to — and she's strong enough to handle this for a little while anyway. She'll be right as Rahne in a day or two.
"Yeah." Cessily reads Rahne's intent, and gets the message. Her friend is in pain, but okay. Already Cessily's mind is wondering what she could've done differently, better, to prevent that knife-blow that Rahne took.
"We should call the authorities, too. Hopefully they can get some answers from these jerks," she tells the others.
Then she looks to the girl, telling her, "You're lucky. I never got any ponies when I was your age."
"Pony? Sure! One pony coming up." Removing the hand from his own wounded shoulder, Gar figures he can walk it off as he starts to shift and becomes a perfect little shetland pony - just green. Ignore that wound in his left shoulder. He'll get better, surely? "Quarter for a ride, but a smile gets a ride for free!" he offers to the youngster, as he leaves the calling of the authorities to the other two.
Rahne sets the girl carefully atop the pony, then retrieves her phone. Rather than being stuck in a pocket or pouch, she carries it on a thong around her neck. "Ye call the cops, Cess. D' ye know yer parents' number?" she asks the girl as she nudges Gar toward the back door. The criminals are down for the moment — but they could wake up, and really, Rahne is sure the girl's had enough of them.