2013.07.11 - Blood and Coffee All Up In Mutant Town

Another swell and well Thursday afternoon. Or, as Tabitha Smith likes to call it: morning. Yeah, she rolled out of bed, threw on some clothes without even looking at what it was, socks all mismatched. In a surprisingly fluid yet stumbling routine that would resemble a rock star, hipster-esque mindless zombie, she started the coffee-maker, got some sausages fried up, washed-up, and threw some Amanda Palmer on the speakers. Head-bobbin' and oblivious to all. But, then, suddenly, she stopped in her tracks. Something outside her little apartment window? Voices for sure.
Her grubby fingers wrapped around a sausage, ketchup dripping lazily on the floor, she stepped up to the glass and looked down. A truck was turned on its side. And nobody was around. 'What the heck? How'd I miss this?' she wondered, laughing and gasping in one ungraceful hiccup. Racing out her door to check it out, she left the front door open, and scurried up to the vehicle, eyebrow already anticipating its rise.
Elijah had been laying on his back on a rooftop, a battered paperback in his hands, some piece of detective fiction he managed to pick up for nothing at a used bookstore. Libraries would be nicer, but he can't always guarantee the condition of books, plus he doesn't exactly have identification. So, the adventures of Chaser O'Brian, Private Eye, it is.
And then he hears the crash. He perks up, sitting up quickly, his senses coming into focus. Not only the normal ones, but his area awareness, drinking in the sense impressions and networked thoughts of the people in the neighborhood, bringing him a directional idea of where the trouble was. He rooftop-runs, leaping across a few alleys and finally off the top of Boom-Boom's building, passing by her window on the way down, landing on his feet on the sidewalk below as he goes to help...
From out of the sky comes a streak of black smoke. Those who notice it might make jeering references to the television show, 'Lost'. The streak plummets into an alley somewhere and is gone. 
However, within that alley, the smoke strikes the ground and transforms into that of 'Shift'. The X-Man is not feeling well. Well enough, however, to stubbornly leave Westchester County. As he emerges from the alleyway, he wears a slight derivative of his X-Men uniform--still gunmetal grey and decidedly form fitting, the pants are a bit looser, somewhat resembling cut off skinny jeans, and the top is short sleeved and lacking any identifying insignia.
Slipping his hand into a pouch resembling a pocket, he produces a soft pack of smokes, a beat up zippo, and proceeds to light up. One exhalation of second hand smoke into the air later, and his mismatched eyes are catching sight of the overturned truck.
He tries to hide a sneer, and does pretty well. Sort of.
"Well, ain't that a thing," Tabby muttered to herself as she sipped her coffee, mug still in hand. She wasn't going to let any kind of outside shenanigans slow her flow. Another gulp, she began examined the wreckage: whoever was driving this large pick-up had gotten blood all over their (now sideways) seat, the door, and a trail of bloodcrumbs leading away from the wreckage. "Yuck," was concluded. 
Now, Tabitha is far from a detective, but it even she was able to discern that whoever was in the truck was hurt and had crawled away, at at alarming speed, away from this scene. She begrudgingly debated following the trail. "But I was gonna start a Buffy marathon today!" she sarcastically whined aloud, to nobody in particular. With a sigh, she took one more gaze around the area, catching view of Elijah.
Elijah moves in quickly, raising a hand to some of the people on the street to indicate he's taking care of it. While most strangers see only a homeless kid, most of the locals here know Elijah, or at least of him, know that he does his best to keep them safe and fight off trouble. He goes to the cab, searching for sight of injuries. He pauses a moment and grasps the truck, gritting his teeth for a moment as he applies muscle and starts to lift it, trying to set it back upright onto its tired, just in case someone might have gotten caught beneath it.
This is not the day for Shift to get involved in heroics. There's just too much on his mind, and if Doctor Grey knew he was out here, of all places, in Mutant Town, she wouldn't be happy. Another couple drags later, Kwabena notices that a kid, seemingly homeless, is actually hefting the truck onto its side. That sneer turns into more of a smirk, and he spares just one more drag of the cigarette before tucking it down at his side. His hand 'poofs' into black smoke, snuffs out the cigarette, then quickly reforms into flesh and blood again. There is a quiet sigh, before he begins crossing the street between cars. The cigarette is discarded into an overflowing waste bin, and he pulls up some distance away, for the time being, simply watching.
"Whoa, hey now, bucko-buster. Stop showing off," Boom-Boom quips to Elijah. "Dirty mutants think they run the place," she adds sarcastically. Taking two steps in the direction of the bloody trail, she stops and turns her head back, "Some lousy driver decided to hoof it," pointing to the sullied path. "C'mon Skywalker, let's check it out."
Coffee finished, Tabitha carelessly flings the mug in any old direction, it crashing and breaking on the ground, all the while she launches into a full-fledged skip like she was friggin' Dorothy and this was the Yellow Brick Road. "Try to keep up," she declares.
Elijah gets the truck righted, just in time to see Boom-Boom jauntily entering into his frame of reference. He's seen her around, a light-hearted presence, albeit a little flakey. A welcome addition, in his opinion, to a neighborhood that's too often full of suffering and sorrow. A reminder that being a mutant isn't always a curse.
At her prompting, he nods, not taking offense at her tone as he moves along in her wake, the silent mutant coming up behind her as he tries to flit his area awareness about, seeing if he can get a sense of the driver and where he or she might have gone...
"You guys don't call de police around here?" Shift makes his presence known, and his voice is all but unmistakeable. His heavy accent reeks of being one of those English-as-a-second-language Africans, and someone with a keen ear might recognize it as originating from Ghana.
Of course, the accent does nothing to hide the ironic tone in his voice, for really, he'd rather the police not show up at all. They'd try to arrest him on sight, after all.
Briefly, he takes stock of both Elijah and Boom-Boom, sparing no shame in giving each a solid once over. Then, he casts a glance around at the all but worthless onlookers. "Well, nobody else is helping, so I sahpose dat leaves me." He motions toward the girl with a somewhat lazy smirk. "Onward, skippy!"
Boom-Shakalaka is pleased to have another follow her on the road to madness. Following along, the blood-trail begins seem to taper off after about a block, and then suddenly turns into a nearby shop. "ALTERATIONS" is shoddily painted onto an old wooden side by the door. "I do declare our injured driver dude may just have gone this way!" she proclaims, stating the obvious. She actually never noticed this discrete little spot before even though it was just a block from her house. She stops by the door, waiting for the other two to meet her.
She examines the two in turn, gives an odd sort of smile to them... it's hard to tell if she's being smug, silly, or genuinely happy about something, and considering the circumstance it seems just a hair inappropriate. "Names Tabitha," she says with a wave, "and who are you, my would-be accomplices in detective-ry?"
Elijah almost sighs inwardly, as it always comes to this. Being mute is enough of a pain in just simple social interactions, but, in the heat of the moment, he doesn't have much time to get out a piece of paper and scrawl his name. He signs his codesign pointlessly, fully aware that it's likely that nobody hear can understand sign language, pulling down the cloth covering his lips and mouthing "Communion" and pointing to his throat with his other hand, lifting his scarf away to show the scarring there where he was robbed of his voice. He's not entirely sure why this girl is so very chipper about chasing a blood trail, but he finds her good cheer re-assuring.
As for Shift, Eli isn't entirely sure what to make of the costumed stranger with the interesting accent. While he's become more familiar with conventional superheroes, masked and unmasked, in recent days, he's often wary of those who wear them. Too often they're more interested in their own grudges and causes, and drag the citizens of mutant town into their meaningless turf wars. Still, he's hear to help and Eli gives him a grudging nod in greeting.
"Shift." Kwabena's answer comes without fanfare. However, those who have an ear to the tri-state underground just might have heard it before. Most of the rumors have to do with the local organized crime trade fearing the name. Others claim he's one to bust drug dealers, then sell drugs himself. 
Oh, and there's a mark out for Shift's head, too. For whatever that's worth.
He's pretty close to making a terrible joke about Elijah's name being 'mutie'. He does, however, show a touch of compassion when the man makes an attempt at introducing himself, and his smirky expression softens just so.
"Ten bucks says he's getting some few jobs done on his clothing," quips Shift, before reaching out and tugging the door to 'ALTERATIONS' open. To Tabitha he says, "Ladies first." Chivalry? No. He's planning on watching her back. Suddenly, the seemingly 'no cares given' mutant is all eyes, and they are peering into the room beyond vigilantly.
"Oh, a mute. That's cute," Tabitha rhymes, rather lackidaisically. She smiles at him, trying a little hard to look all accepting. She turns this smile to Shift as well, and smirking at his comment about the shop.
When Shift opens the door for her, she takes one step inside, but then dramatically stops, frozen. She turns around in place, on one foot (Michael Jackson-style!) and says, "Hey, wait a sec. You're a frickin' X-Man," gesturing vaguely at his clothing. "But I haven't seen you on TV or anything," she says, sarcastically pretending to be suspicious, squinting her face comically at him.
Behind her, an enraged voice bellows out, a baritone of something not quite human. "X-MEN??! Hell no!!" the click of a gun's safety might be heard, and Tabitha spins around to see what's inside: A gigantic hulking eight-foot-tall man with a rifle pointed at a short Chinese woman's head. "Oh hai," she peeps, her face looking not unlike she just stepped on a turd.
Elijah arches an eyebrow at the fact that Shift's an X-man, the most prominent of all mutant groups, although his opinion on the subject remains much the same. The shout from within draws his attention back to the problem at hand rather quickly, though, and, at the sight of the gun, he tries to push himself in front of Boom-Boom and Shift is possible, knowing his own ability to heal will make him a better target to be shot if the...huge dude...wow, that really is big...gets trigger happy. He holds up his hands beseechingly, again bemoaning his lack of voice inwardly as he does the gesture equivalent of "Whoa there, big fella!"
Shift gives Tabitha a pointed look of disappointment. "You aren't going to see me on--"
He knows that sound. Making no sudden movements, he nearly reaches out to grab Elijah, not wanting the kid to get hurt. 
However, he thinks better of it. How could they know that bullets wouldn't harm him? If he were to tell them, it might only serve to instigate the big guy. Instead, Shift slides just a bit over beside Elijah, lifting his hands into the air. 
"Listen, big guy. Nobody wants to get hurt here. But, if you shoot her..." His mismatched eyes glower at the big man, because he's fully convinced of what he's about to say. "It's going to be a very bad day for you." One hand makes a very subtle motion with fingers only, gesturing downward. "Put... de gun... down."
The giant man growls, "Get out of here," his voice's eerie, inhuman tone echoing the shop, making it feel like a bigger space than it actually was.
With a pause, he lowers his gun away from the woman's head, and spits blood out of his mouth... spraying a huge, horrifying mist of it across the woman's industrial sewing machines lined up to their side. "I'll tear this place apart so be it," he announces rather confidently, "Let me walk out of here and you can live." His stare is pronounced, and his eyes beam a faded red glow to them.
Tabitha, not knowing what to do, just stands there, mouth gaping open.
Elijah tries to slowly, carefully edge forward, making his movements as subtle as he can. Since Shift is being so vocal and threatening, he hopes the big man's attention is more focused on the threat the X-man poses, allowing him to shift slowly closer and closer. The spray of blood makes his eyebrows raise. Does this man have some sort of blood-based power, or does he just have some serious internal injuries? Either way, this standoff can't go for long, and they certainly can't leave the poor woman in the clutches of the monster. He keeps his legs tensed, prepared to pounce the moment he sees an opening...
Well, that certainly got his attention.
Shift seems to approve of the gun's lowering. He also carefully watches Elijah's movement from the corner of his eye. He's tense, and ill on top of that. He also has no idea whether the young girl will stop being so clammed up. His eyes flick quickly from Elijah to Boom, and while the big man makes his last threat, he utters a quiet word to her under his breath, praying she hears it.
"Get de gun."
In the flash of a moment and with the poofing sound of air, Shift's arms turn into two plumes of black smoke. They zip across the room and plunge into the man's mouth and nose, driving down forcefully into his lungs. Tendrils flick up to clog his eyes. Hopefully, the fellow doesn't have some kind of super lungs, for otherwise, the 'Shift Choke' tends to do wonders!
"Wow," Boomsy says, simply, watching Shift do his smoke-work. She strolls over and yanks the gun out of the goon's hands, as he limpishly flails into unconsciousness via The Choke.
In all of Tabitha's stunned uselessness, she did manage to observe the scene. Below the towering man lay a duffel bag, propped on his foot, covered in his blood. She figured this was his. Behind him was an entire shelved wall chock *full* of machine parts, hundreds of them, many of which were rusted, gnarly and sharp, indicting that this shop has been in this neighborhood for quite a while. 
Maybe when this is all done, Tabby thought to herself, she could get her favorite jacket stitched up. She noticed the shopkeeper's face absolutely terrified. And she could have her favorite skirt fixed, too! She was glad this woman didn't die.
"Nice work, captain raincloud," she said, gripping the bag. "Let's see what's in his goody-sack," she said hungrily. Unzipping it, there was several medium-sized bags of cocaine. "Party at my place!" she immediately cheered.
Elijah blinks as Shift's sudden action immediately overwhelms the giant man, Boomer shoving her way past him a bit and leaping forward to snatch away the gun at Shift's instruction. Elijah moves forward as well, putting one hand first on the shopkeeper's shoulder, helping to calm her and making sure she hasn't suffered any injuries, lending her a bit of his healing to smooth away any bruises or soreness from where she was grasped.
When Boom-Boom reveals the massive amounts of drugs, he shakes his head, moving past it and actually going to check on the unconscious man. He doesn't know Shift, after all, so he needs to make sure the big man is at least alive.
For good measure, Shift waits until he's quite sure the big guy has passed out. The plumes of smoke immediately withdraw and reform into flesh and blood, and in short order, he's on his way to Elijah's side. Noticing that Elijah is checking the big guy for vitals, he passes the mute an approving look. "Is he breathing?" he asks.
Boom-Boom's exclamation draws a brief look from the African's mismatched eyes. She gets a 
disapproving look, which is marginally hypocritical, since the stuff's been up his nose before. 
"Careful, NRA," he quips, making a reference to how she nabbed the big guy's gun. "By de look of him, dat junk might be laced with meth."
"This guy looks pretty strong," she says observantly, I guess that truck accident must've already winded him. "What do we do now?" she asks with sincerity, "And my greasy little mitts have fingerprinted the heck of this gun," she notes. Stepping around the shop, looking over the place idly, she muses aloud, "Crisis comes around and some mutants actually care around here. Thought I was the only--" Tabitha is interrupted by the sudden, distant blaring sounds of police sirens. "The 5-0!" she says.
Elijah satisfies himself that the big man is, at least, alive, only unconscious. He grasps the big man at the ankle and begins to drag him from the shop. Despite his size, the big man moves easily, another tell of the strength possessed by the mute young man. He hears the sirens in the distance and the resulting flutter in the consciousness of the neighborhood, wary mutants shutting up shop or closing windows. Even more than most of New York, Mutant Town had a tendency to play the see no evil, hear no evil game when the cops show up. He points towards the bag of drugs, gesturing that Boom-Boom should bring it outside as he pulls the hostage taker into the street, directly in line with where the trail of drugs will lead the cops. He pats the big man's chest, indicating that she should set the cocaine there, Eli clearly planning to just leave the big man to his fate in police custody.
Hearing the police sirens, Kwabena actually rolls his eyes. Oh, how he disliked the police. He is, however, distracted by the way Elijah grabs the perp and drags him toward the door like a rag. He looks over at Boom-Boom with wide eyes, then just points at Elijah while mouthing the word 'wow' silently.
Sticking out his hand, he gives the young girl a choice. "Eithah you give it to me, and I get rid of it, or you turn it ovah to de police, answah two hundred questions, and find yourself as one of dere suspects." A smirk forms on his face. "If I were you, I'd hand it ovah."
A sparing glance is given toward the door. "Oh yeah. Follow de mute's idea. Dey pin dat snow on you, you'll be doing life in Pontiac."
With a mighty shrug, Boomsy starts to follow Elijah's lead, but then considered Shift's words. She tosses the bag at him, rather flippantly (assuming he'll catch it without checking), and struts over to the unconscious hulking fellow and Elijah. "All in a days work," she announces, trying to invoke an ironically over-confident, superhero voice. Debating on if she she wait for the police to arrive or not, the sounds still slowly approaching, she tries her hand at impossible blathersome chit-chat. "How'd you get so ripped, dude?" she asks Elijah, fully aware that he can't easily answer. "Let's make us three a team. The X-X-X. Three times the X," she snickers nervously, eyeballing a few local residents shutting their blinds in anticipation of the police arrival. Looking back to Shift, she says, "You're alright by me, man. You're all-right."
Elijah stands up from where he was kneeling next to the fallen giant, looking with amusement at Boom-Boom as she speaks. He gives a shrug to her question to him, not quite sure how to explain his abilities, especially without using actual, vocal words or, at least, a notepad. He does make a playful flexing gesture, pro-wrestler style. At the X-X-X suggestion, he winces a little and shakes his head, mouthing the word 'Dirty', while laughing silently. Hearing the police getting closer and seeing the nervous look on Boomer's face, he gestures towards his back and points upwards, suggesting she can climb on if she wants to make a swift escape.
"I guess it's time to make my rounds. I haven't even had my donuts yet," Boomsy says, as if something sacrilegious had occurred. She gives a spontaneous, excited little hop and darts off, rounding the street corner, shouting "Catch ya on the flip siiiiiide!" as she skitters out of sight.
Elijah shakes his head as the others vanish quickly, the neighborhood protector left holding the bag just a little bit. Not that he really minds, it's part of his responsibility anyway. He takes a moment to tear the handle from a nearby dumpster, twisting the metal pull bar until he makes a nice set of makeshift cuffs, lacing them around the unconscious thug's wrists. As he finishes, he looks up just in time to see the police coming down the alley. He raises a hand in greeting, then casually leaps, careening up up and away (or, at least, to the roof), the superhero jaded NYPD happy to at least find the trash properly trussed and the evidence on hand.
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