2013.04.02 - Easter Heroes

Yes, he was worried about the fact that dark elves, trolls, dwarves, and frost giants had slipped into Midgard. Sure, there was still the matter of tracking down Ember and his cohorts. And this was pretty embarrassing, but Axiom agreed to do this for the kids. So he's been spending time at various homeless shelters today in costume, handing out candy to the kids and generally keeping them all in high spirits. He's even been seen wearing some fake rabbit ears for the kids. Right now though, he's in the back of the latest shelter getting a quick rest while dinner is served to the shelters resisdents. "Wiccan is n-never going to let me hear the end of this," he murmurs as he takes off the rabbit ears.
Gabriel kicks in the back door and walks through it, backward. In his arms is a stack of no-name-brand boxes of spaghetti and meatball cans. An unprobably high stack of boxes considering the physical appearance of the young man sinc eh has about 20 boxes in the stack, making him have to almost walk in a squat to walk in through the door. "Hey everyone! Got a donation coming in here! Where'd you want it?" And after a moment, "And can someone guide me, please? I can't see where I'm going..."
Axiom jumps and hops to his feet, surprised by the sudden entrance. When he sees it's someone with a donation, he relaxes. "How about I help you instead?" he offers, moving to take some of the boxes. "Hi. I'm pretty sure the d-donations go in the back kitchen."
Gabriel stops walking as he hears a familiar voice up close then he peeks ackwardly around the tall stack of boxes of canned spaghetti. "Heeeeey. How's it going Eddie... Ummm... What'cha wearing?" He lowers the boxes a bit so Eddie can grab the top half if he wants to follow up on his offer.
Axiom arches a brow. "The name's Axiom, actually," the masked teen stresses. "I've been volunteering t-today and different shelters around town," he explains, taking half the boxes and starting to shuffle towards the kitchen.
The door opens and in comes a figure not carrying boxes of any sort. A head of chaotic curls with a neon hood (currently pulled down) leads the way. She bounces in, but stops when she spots one familiar face and another not so familiar, "Anyone see a woman head in here?" Then she waves a hand to Axiom, "Hey!" She's got on civilian clothes, but over her uniform, which is showing in several spots, so it's not exactly a big secret that she's Circus.
Gabriel peeks over the top of his newly shortened stack of boxes with a muttered "Oooops.." He smiles at Axiom and in a normal voice adds, "Sorry about that Axiom. All I saw was the bunny ears. Angles and all that..." Mhmmmm, riiiight. Turning slowly around, so as not to spill the still large stack of boxed cans he looks at Circus, "Not me. Axion, you see a woman walk in?"
"It's okay. Given my p-powers, I get mistaken for other people all the time. Just this morning, someone thought I was a Blue Lantern," Axiom explains. "Whatever that is," he adds. He stumbles slightly when Circus comes in but manages to not drop anything. "N-nope. Sorry. Who're you looking for exactly?" he asks. 
All three are in one of the backrooms at a homeless shelter in the Bronx. Axiom's been visiting various shelters around the city and handing out candy to kids and hanging out with the kids to make their day brighter. Gabriel's just arrived with a donation.
"Ah...too bad. It would have been sweet if she was a volunteer type. Nice to imagine them as sweet as they are..." Circus stops and looks over at the face she doesn't know. "Hey. What's up? Here for a bed or food, or just to chit chat with my roomie?" She's mixing hero and normal clothes today, her jeans looking about ready to fall off her neon clad bottom, but for now, everyone is spared the sight.
It's time to cycle to another shelter again, evidently, as Jeremy--who has been back at Jonah's for the past few days--comes walking into the current shelter, fully intent on walking right up to someone in authority and asking if there's anything he can do to help out, in what's quickly becoming a ritual the kid is known for at any of the shelters he stays in. As he steps inside, though, he stops, blinking at the sight of not one, not two, but three people he knows in some way or another. Of course, only one of those is someone he feels particularly comfortable greeting. "Oh! Mister Gabriel! Um, um...do you need help with that?" He rushes over, giving a somewhat worried look at both Circus and Axiom. The former...is a little odd. The latter...well, the last time Jeremy saw him... The worried look /does/ fade a bit to be replaced by a quizzical glance at the bunny ears, though.
Gabriel Gives Circus an arched eyebrow look, "And who's the person you were wishing was a volunteer?" before turning to respond to Jeremy's greeting, looking at him from over the top of his stack of canned spaghetti boxes, "Axiom was just going to show me where to put these, Kiddo. Want to help shelve them?"
Axiom gives Circus an arched brow too. "Uhh...what're you t-t-talking about, Circus?" he asks. Looking around, he frowns and shrugs a little. Jeremy's entrance gets a small smile. "Hey, Jeremy," he greets.
Circus shrugs her shoulders to Gabriel's question, "I don't know her, but I would recognize her backside." She adds Axiom to her list of shrug targets before turning to face Jeremy, "Hey there kid. How you doing?" She eyes him intently, checking him out.
Jeremy smiles a bit at Gabriel. "Um, sure...I was just going to go ask if there was somethin' I could do, so...this works." He looks over at Axiom, and the smile fades a bit, but he tries to cover it. "Um, hi, Mister...um...Axiom." A long pause, and he looks at least a little amused--still nervous, but amused. "Um, the bunny ears d-don't really work with the rest of the outfit, I-I think." At Circus' question, he looks over at her, even more nervously. "Um...I'm okay...um, have you been doing all right? I mean...um, you haven't hurt yourse...I mean, gotten hurt again or anything?"
Gabriel looks back and forth among everyone as the conversation goes on and as soon as he has a moment he focuses on Axiom, "Can we take these where they go, please? They /are/ getting a bit heavy." 
"Okay..." Axiom trails off, confused by Circus. He glances to Gabe and nods. "Let's go," he says as he leads the way through the kitchen to the pantry where the food is kept. The expression on Jeremy's face gets a concerned little look out of Axiom but once he brings up the bunny ears, the power booster blushes furiously. "They're for the k-kids. I've been helping out at shelters today," he explains, setting the boxes down and starting to shelve cans.
Well, there's a lot of them, and a lot of cans. Repetitive physical action is something she can do, and something she can do swiftly. Circus settles in and starts helping with the cans, "Good of you to help. Homeless shelters are really important. Save a lot of lives, all sorts of good things."
"Um...yeah...that's really nice of you, Mister Axiom." Jeremy follows the others to the kitchen, and as they start unpacking the cans, he starts helping out as best he can. He's actually quite fast as well, and very serious about doing good work. Of course, he's also a somewhat frazzled youth, so he's occasionally underfoot or otherwise in the way as he moves about in not-entirely-organized fashion, resulting in more than a few "oh, excuse me" and "sorry, sorry" moments.
Gabriel grins at Jeremy over his shoulder as they follow Axiom, "Shhhhh... Don't tell anyone but Axiom is just his off season job. This time of year he's Super Easter Bunny!" Once they're in the pantry he puts his boxes on top of Axiom's creating a big tower again and focuses his attention on Circus as they start working on shelving the cans,"Hi. It seems we all know each other here except for you and me. I'm Gabriel. And I help because I'm paying back the help I got earlier in my life" The introduction is accompanied by an offered hand.
"It's n-not just that," Axiom replies as he continues to put cans away. "It's...well...a superhero's job is more than j-j-just fighting bad guys and rescuing people from fires and stuff. We...we have to bring hope. To show people that they shouldn't give up and that things will be okay," he says softly. It's important to him. He's not that bothered by Jeremy being underfoot, just carefully stepping around him. Gabriel gets a curious look when he explains why he's helping, Axiom cutious about the other guy.
Circus stops shelving cans and takes the offered hand. She gives Gabriel's hand a friendly shake, "Nice to meet you Gabriel. I'm Francesca, but most people call me Circus." Pumping his hand up and down she says, "I've almost needed a place like this dozens of times, but I'm a superhero, so I haven't. But I've been lucky. I've got good friends and all that. Lucky. But not having a place to sleep, a place you can count on being there. That is an awful thing." She doesn't seem bothered by Gabriel at all, having someone else underfoot helps keep her from being the one that is underfoot.
Jeremy blinks, pausing in place at Axiom's words, and stares at him. "Um..." He hesitantly smiles, and nods. "Um, yeah. I-I agree. I mean...um...I mean I agree that's important...and stuff...I don't know about bein' a superhero and stuff. But...I think it's great to hear that. I-It's not enough to stop the bad guys; you've gotta help people go on, right?" Axiom just earned a few dozen points with him, apparently. "You're a nice guy," he says, as he gets back to work.
Gabriel smiles all around as he goes back to work shelving, pretty much avoiding Jeremy almost out of instinct and teasing him in a friendly, almost brotherly way on the few instances he does get in Gabriel's way. "To quote a famous line: With great power comes great responsibility. And you're all right. Part of that responsibility it the little, day-to-day kind of stuff. Maybe even the most important part."
"I...I've had need of places like these before and I n-n-never really had them so I do what I can to make sure they're around for the people that do," Axiom admits quietly. When he notices Jeremy staring at him, Axiom looks his way and offers a smile. He ends up blushing a bit when called a nice guy. "I try to be," he says as he shelves. "Spider-Man said that to me when I teamed up with him and one of the X-men once. It was awesome."
"Spider-Man is pretty cool. His webbing is pretty neat. I wish I could do something like that myself." Circus takes a step over to clap Axiom on the shoulder, "Good friends and good people. I'm lucky to know the people I know. People who do the right things for the right reasons. I hope I can be as good of people as my friends one day."
Jeremy blinks a few times. "Who..." Pause. Realization that not knowing a hero that everyone else clearly knows might get him odd looks. "Um. Well...um, I think it's great what you're doin', and...stuff...and, um...I realy appreciate it." He takes a breath, and looks over at Circus. "Um, you too, Miss Franny. I think it's great seein' real heroes helpin' out in stuff like this too. It's what I'd want to do if I were, you know...a superhero."
Well, lots of hands make for quick work so by the time the conversation reaches this point almost half the cans are on their shelves and its looking like Gabriel might have overdone it. There might not be enough space on the shelves for all of the cans. "Well, like they say Circus: You are who you hang out with. And it sounds like you're hanging out with the right kind of people..." He trails off and tilts his head a bit to the side, trying to hear what's happening in the common room of the shelter a little better. And he's on to something because the volume of noise has increased and sounds a lot less happy than before...
"Scarlet Spider is cooler though," Axiom's just a little biased because Ben is his friend and teammate. He offers Circus a smile. "Maybe one d-day you can be, Jeremy," he offers. Getting back to work, he slows down and frowns when he starts to hear the noises change. When Gabriel goes quiet, Axiom glances his way. "I'll check it out," he says, heading slowly towards the common room to see what's going on.
"He was pretty cool when I met him too. Heck, I guess most of the superheroes I've met have been pretty cool." Circus laughs a bit before the sounds from the common room attract her attention. Not known for her caution, she launches herself up the ceiling, then past the others, running onhands and toes across the ceiling until she drops to the floor to enter the common room to see what is up.
Jeremy blinks at the change as well, looking over towards the door. There's clear indecisiveness in the boy for a few moments, as he bounces back and forth between "let the professionals handle it" and "practice what I preach." The latter wins, as it usually does with him. So, a few moments after Axiom heads for the common room, Jeremy walks quietly over to the entrance to the common room takes a deep breath, and steps in as well.
Gabriel sighs as he sticks his hands in his pockets muttering, "Its always one thing or another. Not one quiet day, even because its Easter." But he follows everyone else out into the common room.
As the small group walks in from the back area they're greated with quite the little spectacle. Four men are walking around the common room stopping at tables and speaking to people in low voices. Said people are looking either bewildered, angry, or scared depending on who they are but there is one young man, that's pressed up against a wall and /clearly/ scared as a flashily-dressed young man talks to him in low muttering tones, smiling in a way that doesn't reach his eyes.
From the door Gabriel calls out, "You know, today's Easter, its a holiday. Shouldn't y'all be taking the day off or something?"
Taking the rabbit ears off along the way and leaving them on a shelf, Axiom scowls when he sees what's in the common room. He doesn't stop at the door, stepping right into the room and looking towards the flashily-dressed man. "I'm going to ask once. Please let him go and leave," he requests. Axiom does tend to try to be polite at first.
Circus walks into the room and looks around and shakes her head, "We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the way that gets you all horribly beat up and thrown out on your asses. And like the guy said, its Easter and this is a shelter, so why don't we all be peaceful." She gives a big crazy smile, dragging her hood up over her hair, "Or...we could have fun beating you up. Whoops, sorry. I'm not supposed to enjoy beating up the bad guys."
"Hey!" Jeremy rarely looks angry, but this is one of those rare moments. Upon seeing the flashily-dressed guy, he marches right past Axiom and Circus and over towards the man, fists clenched tight. "I thought I told you I wanted you g..." Pause. "Oh. Um, different shelter...right. Um, but still!" Brief interruption aside, he manages to reassume his "angry hero" mood as best he can, and continues walking over towards the man. "I don't know what you didn't understand, mister, but I don't want you doin' stuff around shelters! These people have enough to deal with without you messin' with them! Get out!" Jeremy /normally/ tries polite first too, but this one seems to have set him off. Maybe he was polite the first time around.
Gabriel blinks at Jeremy's uncharacteristic outburst before remembering the story he shared about the dealer at Jonah's shelter. With a sigh he starts to motion people towards the back door, "OK, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry but I would recommend that you all wait outside for a moment. I don't think these ~gentlemen~ are going to be nice enough to step outside themselves." And the flashily dressed man kind of supports this statement when he grins down at Jeremy, "Heeeey little buddy. NIce to see you again. Back for the beatin' you didn't get last time? Big, bad Mend isn't here to help you now." The biggest, most muscle-bound of the flashy man's crew cracks his knuckles in a menacing way and looks at his boss with a smirk, "This time he brought the Tiny Tikes with him." Which pulls out a laugh from the other three thugs as they start moving away from the tables and facing the teenagers.
With the exception of thin but athletic guys that pulls out a knife Jeremy might recognize with one hand and janks the woman he'd been talking to to her feet, putting the knife point to her ribs, "You really need to stop messing with our business kid. Now you and your friends get out of here before someone gets hurt."
Axiom's pretty surprised by the outburst from Jeremy as well. He realizes what's going on pretty quickly too and his expression darkens a bit. Messing with the homeless, especially kids, is a quick way to get him to drop the politeness. He nods to Gabriel when he starts ushering people out and then to Circus. "Mend isn't here but we are," he speaks up. When that knife comes out, Axiom scowls. "Let her go. Now," he says, eyes lighting up bright blue as he boosts Circus' powers. He knows she's got speed and some kind of teleporting so he figures making it better will help. Of course it doesn't look like he's doing anything except standing there.
Time was starting to slow down for Francesca, then it basically hit a brick wall and came to a halt. "Holy Crap." But at the time ratio she's currently hit, her words are a high pitched blip. She takes a long time studying the situation frozen around her, then springs forward, shot from a cannon. If not for her kicked up reflexes she might have just leapt through the woman hostage and the guy behind her, but whatever Axiom did made everything better, and she has time to touch the hostage with her fingertips before they are both teleported across the room, away from the man with the knife. As the woman is left to deal with the disorientation of the teleport, Circus has run up the wall, bounced across the room, and shed her shirt (Leaving her costume showing!) "Whoa!" this time she slows her speech down enough so she sounds like Minny Mouse.
"Miss Mend helped out a lot, but I-I could've taken you myself," Jeremy says, glaring back at the flashily-dressed man. "Did you forget? You can't hurt..." And then the knifeman has a woman held hostage, and he stops dead, eyes going wide. "W-wait...I-I mean..." All the fire left the kid in an /instant/. "Um, um..." he steps back a few steps. "Please...um, I mean...I..." And then, hey, guess what? No hostage. "Wh-what?" The damage to Jeremy's confidence, though, has already been done. He keeps hesitating, looking around the room to see if anyone else is in a dangerous position--unwilling to move if it looks like someone might get hurt.
The combination of Gabriel's gentle urgings and the hostage situation has made it so that everyone else in the shelter chooses to leave, running out both the front and back doors, leaving as much space as possible between themselves and the thugs, even if it means shoving and pushing some of their shelter-mates. After a few seconds the onlt people left in the room are the thugs and the heroes; and the dazed woman Circus just teleported out of danger.
Gabriel isn't in Circus' league when it comes to speed, obviously. But his unassuming frame can produce surprisingly fast and coordinated movement. And he started moving as soon as he saw the woman disappear from the knifeman's arm. With a jump he's airborne, a hand being placed on the center of a table pushing him even further, so that he ends up kicking the knife man in the chest with both feet before he's even reacted to the loss of his hostage, sending him flying into the table behind him. 
Flashy Man goes from sleezily friendly to angry in the few seconds it takes for all this to happen and he shouts, "Now you've done it. Boys! Guns! We'll show these punks why they don't mess with our business." And, indeed, guns are drawn.
Bounce off that wall, ricochet off the floor, to the ceiling, and come at random gun guy from behind, kicking him firmly in the back while pulling the gun from his hand. The gun is winged across the room at another of the gunmen. Circus watches it tumble through the air in slow motion, wondering if she's thrown it too hard. She's not sure just how fast she is right now, 50 to 1 maybe? More? As the gun strikes the guy in the wrist, she's relieved that she doesn't hear the sounds of any broken bones, and that both guns go flying. She doesn't like bone breaking when she can avoid it. "Drop your guns or I'll introduce them to your asses!" Squeak!
Axiom just sighs as the thugs insist on still fighting even after Circus and Gabriel spring into action. "Remember we d-did give you a change to surrender peacefully," he sighs. He keeps boosting Circus to give them their advantage before he sprints forward as well. Even though he's not mimicking anyone, Axiom is still a fast guy. He uses a chair and a table to leap up into the air and send a kick at the flashy man.
"Okay...okay, nobody's in trouble..." Jeremy says under his breath. He starts to glow, surrounded by blue light. "I told you to..." Oh dear...guns. Jeremy's never really dealt with guns before...other than that one time...but no, that was just an illusion, wasn't it? Part of Jeremy still isn't sure, and that part slows him down. "St-Stay down! Stay down!" he yells in the general direction of...everyone who he's not sure can take a bullet. Never mind that he's not really sure /he/ can take a bullet. By the time he's moving, Circus has two of the guns taken care of, and Axiom is charging the flashily-dressed guy. Fortunately, even if he's out of it, Jeremy /does/ seem to have at least something of a tactical mind...he goes for the fourth guy with a gun drawn, charging straight for him and aiming a low-powered kinetic blast from his hand for the guy's gun hand. Jeremy doesn't have much power stored right now...all he can manage is a blast of about the same strength as a normal punch...and a normal punch from /him/ at that, not a full-grown adult. But he's not stopping...as soon as the blast is out, Jeremy's jumping for the guy as fast as he can and swinging a jumping kick for his chin.
Gabriel doesn't do the whole, flashy, bounce-off-the-chest-and-flip-back-onto-your-feet thing. He falls to the floor, flat, with lots of noise. Anyone trained in martial arts will realize that all the noise is him slapping the momenting out of the fall with his arms. Immediately he kipups back to his feet then without standin all the way spins a quick kick into his opponents chin. The guys spins in the air once, then falls flat on his face, clearly out for the count, blood leaking slowly from the corner of his lip. Flashy Man gets a few, desperate, unaimed shots off in the general direction of Axiom, mostly putting holes in the chair and table as he lags behind Axiom's movement.
Jeremy's gunman is a little steadier, getting off a shot that's well aimed at the young boys shoulder before the impact of Jeremy's energy bolt skews his aim enough to make any other shot impossible without reaiming, which he's trying to do when he has to dodge the boy's kick. Missing his chin Jeremy's kick comes down on the man's gun arm instead, forcing it all the way down to aim now at the floor.
The man Circus kicked in the back falls to the floor on his knees and shows his colors by scrambling, not for his gun or to try and hit Circus, but for the door yelling, "Firggin' muties! Are there any real people left!?" while his partner does scramble under tables to try and retrieve the gun that has been knocked out of his hands.
Axiom stumbles when he lands after the kick, falling to one knee. Thankfully he's been getting better at the training Sif and Thor have been giving him. He's not waiting for the flashy man to recover though. Too many guns going off for his liking. Axiom springs forward and tries to grab the gun-hand with one of his while going for Flashy-Man's collar with the other. "Drop the gun!"
Thanks to Axiom, Circus is still in hyperdrive. She zips towards the man scrambling under the tables and drops into a slide. She zips along the floor like it was greased and shoots past the thug, grabbing him by the back of the neck so she can introduce his face to the floor. "How do you like that mother" Squeak! "-er?"
"Ah!" Jeremy yelps, as the gunshot hits his shoulder. It doesn't seem like the boy's shield totally stopped it. Tears well up in the boy's eyes, but he keeps his focus, resisting an impulse to clutch at the injury and instead aiming a stomp at the man's lowered gun hand a moment before he swings his elbow for the guy's head, trying his best to maintain his momentum. He's not all that strong and he's pretty light, so momentum helps a lot...and besides, when someone's got a gun and you've got them off balance, you do what you can to /keep/ them off balance at the very least.
A loud 'CRACK' fills the room as Circus' opponent hits the concrete floor /hard/ with his forehead and stops moving, with the exception of slightly twitching limbs. On the other side of the room Flashy Man is down to one knee and off balance as a result of Axiom's but there's nothing wrong with his reflexes so as Axiom goes for his gun hand he lets himself fall back, turning the momentum into a backward roll back into a crouch, coming up trying to find a target again.
Gabriel had been heading for Axiom when he hears Jeremy's yelp of pain. As soon as that happens he changes directions and dives for the gun man, managing to grab his hand as he's falling to the ground. And since the man was trying to dodge in the opposite direction the sudden pull brings his head right into Jeremy's attack, making for a solid hit.
Swiping at the air instead of his intended target, Axiom makes a frustrated little noise. "Fine," he murmurs, mimicking Circus now as well as boosting her. His costume shifts into a fusion of his own and Circus' and Axiom tapes into the power he's copied. The power booster gasps when he feels the rush, eyes widening behind his mask. Now moving with borrowed Circus speed, Axiom rushes forward and sends a hard punch towards the Flashy-Man's jaw.
Circus comes sliding out from under the far table without the dude she went after. She left him to slide along on his own. She also left her pants and boots as well. "Whooo!" When her feet hit the wall she runs up it, then kicks off, flying across the room upside down. A somersault and a twist let her do some sightseeing while she rockets across the room, unable to stop the high pitched giggles that escape her smiling. "Heheh! I forgot the guns!" Which means another somersault so her feet hit first, another dive across the room, a wall splintering landing and a couple of quick grabs to snatch up the guns. Then more giggles as she discovers with two hands full of guns, she can't do what she'd been planning, and doing the whole cartridge thingie she's seen the Flash do.
That close, Gabriel would be able to tell that Jeremy's shoulder /is/ bleeding. The bullet lies on the floor--it didn't go in enough to /stay/ in, but it did actually break through the skin. Difficult to tell how severe the wound is--definitely more than minor--but Jeremy is still able to move the arm. "M-Mister Gabriel?" With Gabriel controlling the guy's gun, and having landed a solid blow, Jeremy manages to catch a moment to think...and realizes there's a better way to fight than landing lots of small blows on a bigger target. He swings a hand for the man's chin, and lets out a kinetic blast--a higher power, aided by the extra energy he absorbed from the bullet. It's still like a punch--wide impact, rather than a bullet's piercing--but a stronger one than the boy could throw, this time...though still within human range.
Gabriel's reflexes really are excellent. Seeing what Jeremy is doing he yanks on the guy's arm pulling him into the bolt. The yank doesn't have a whole lot of power since Gabriel has very little leverage lying flat on the floor but given his strength its more than enough to at leastmake the hit half again as powerful as Jeremy intended, snapping the man's head back and to the side, knocking him out, "Good job, Kid!" Turning around so he's on his back he looks out into the room at large.
Three passed out guys, one runaway, no one near a gun and Axiom dealing with the last bad guy. Things seem well under control at this point.
Especially since Flashy Man isn't nearly fast enough to get out of Axiom's way now that the young man is boosted by Circus' powers. He takes the punch full in the chin, not even being able to start dodging. The speedsters see the classic scene of a line of spittle and blood slowly flying out of the corner of Flashy Man's lips before he crashes to his knees and holds his hands up, "No more! No more! I give!"
Axiom winces slightly at the line of blood and spittle, making sure he's not in the way of it. As soon as Flashy Man gives up, Axiom moves forward and gets to work zip-tying the man's hands behind his back. "Finally d-did something smart," he mutters, dropping his boost of Circus. He still feels that rush but not as intensely. A quick glance around to confirm that the bad guys are down and Axiom stops boosting Circus too.
Circus looks at the pair of guns in her hands, then stuffs them into her pack while trying to curb her giggles. But it seems an impossible task, and she giggles even while breathing heavily. "Wow. Wow. Wow!" She bounces in place as she looks over the room, "What was that? Is anyone hurt? Everyone okay? Oh my god I am burning up. I am so hot. Hawt." More giggles follow and she zips to the door, "You guys got this? I hope you got this. I have to go cool down." That said, she rushes out the way they came in, undoing her costume as she goes.
Okay, the threat seems to be over.../now/ Jeremy can nurse his wound. He puts a hand to his shoulder, looking down at the blood, and sniffles a bit...but he puts on as brave a face as he can to walk back over to the flashily-garbed man. "Mister...th-this is twice, now. I-I don't want to ever see you again, got it? I don't care if it's near a shelter or not. I don't want to see you again." He looks over at Axiom, then at the (swiftly retreating) Circus, and then at Gabriel, then back at the dealer. "We don't want to see you again...right?"
Gabriel comes up behind Jeremy and puts a hand on the non-injured shoulder to look down at Flashy Man, "Kid's right. But you'll be really lucky if you get out this time around. Now its not going to be little league drug pushing." Pointing at Jeremys shoulder then at the bullet holes around the room he continues, "These are evidence of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. And I don't think you're a big enough player for your bosses to pop the kind of money it would take to get your off that rap, will they? Come on Jeremy, sit down so someone can look at your shoulder."
'Someone' is very close by as the sounds of sirens can be heard approaching. One of the people that ran out at the beginning of the fight, probably one of the shelter volunteers, must have called the police.
"And don't even think about trying anything stupid like g-g-going for revenge," Axiom joins in. "Because I'm g-going to be watching closer from now on. And so will the r-rest of the Young Allies," he says. Yeah, the team that's been on the news for rescuing hordes of kidnapped kids, defeating armored terrorist organizations, and rescuing the mayor. "Are you alright?" he asks Jeremy, bouncing on the spot with excess energy.
Jeremy maintains a brave face for just long enough for Gabriel to direct him away, and walks over to sit down where Gabriel indicates, letting a few tears fall when the dealer can't see his face (at least not up close) anymore. The blue light also stops. At the sound of sirens, though, he starts trembling, looking very nervous. "I-I'm alright, I think, b-but...cops...Mister Gabriel, Mister Axiom, I-I...they're gonna ask me stuff..."
Once all the suspects are zip tied Gabriel completely ignores them. Actually, he ignores them even before that, trusting Axiom to handle the chore, since he's the only /with/ zip ties. With a chuckle he focuses on Jeremy, "Nah Kid. They'll be focused on what happened here. And the only people that saw what you can do was use and duffus over there. And if the three of us say nothing they'll never believe him." As he talks he carefully helps Jeremy peel his shirt off so that the wound is clearly visible, "Let's see how bad this is..."
Axiom does indeed handle all the zip-tying chore. He even drags the thugs into one nice pile, checking injuries and making sure not to make any worse. When he's got it finished, he gives them all a glare. "Stay put," he says firmly, looking up towards Jeremy and Gabriel. "I m-might be able to help with that."
Jeremy winces at the movement, and he's got the sort of expression that suggests he's trying very hard to be brave but is having quite a bit of trouble maintaining it. Still, they get the shirt off. The wound...well, it's more than a scratch, but less than a bullet hole. It didn't go deep at all, and it doesn't look too serious, but it'd be a problem if it wasn't treated at all, of course. "Y-You two won't say anythin'? Nothin' about me helpin' out? I-I really don't want attention..."
Gabriel shakes his head, "You know I won't if you don't want me to. But, honestly, I think you're being /too/ careful about all this. In the end, your choice." He takes the shirt they're just pulled off of Jeremy and rips a strip off the bottom of it without much of a strain at all then folds it into a square, ready to put some pressure on the wound once Axiom has had his look.
"I agree with him. You m-might be being too careful," Axiom remarks. And that's coming from someone that dislikes the police. He examines the wound and frowns. "Do you know how your powers work?" he asks. "Because when I use mine on someone, they t-tend to heal faster. I can do that for you if you'd like," he offers to Jeremy.
Jeremy shakes his head. "I-I can't afford attention. You know that, Mister Gabriel...somethin' bad happened, and..." He sighs, hanging his head. "I-I don't even like havin' to wait here to get this looked at...they might try draggin' me off to foster care or somethin', and that'd be bad. Please...don't tell." He looks up at Axiom. "Umm...m-my powers? Yeah...I mean, I'm rememberin' a little. I-I guess I...I get hit by stuff and then I can hit harder back? Or somethin' like that? Umm...this one girl said I absorbed energy and used it, and that sounded right." He looks hopefully up at Axiom. "I-If you can help...please."
Gabriel nods as he thinks and finally says,"Jeremy, I'm starting to think that whatever the bad thing was, it wasn't around here, if you know what I mean. Around here the worst you probably have to worry about is foster care, which is bad enough..." His voice fades out as a thought hits him then he mumbles to himself, "I wonder what it would take to get documentation made saying your my little brother... With the right records in place..." He's clearly lost in thought and not talking to either of you directly.
"I know what you m-mean about the foster care thing. I never wanted to be stuck in it either," he says. He gives Gabriel a look. "Don't," he says simply. "If you start faking papers it c-could lead to more trouble. No trail," he says. A smile is then directed at Jeremy. "Alright. This won't heal you s-super fast but it'll go faster than normal, okay? It should stop it hurting too but you'll have to hang out with me for a little while," he says, eyes lighting up bright blue as he boosts Jeremy. He not only increases Jeremey's powers but recharges his energy reserves and lets him heal faster than normal.
Jeremy meeps, feeling the sensation, and involuntarily lets the blue light flicker on--brightly--for just a moment before he manages to force it back off again. He looks a little better now, and dries his eyes with a hand. "Um...thank you...Mister Axiom." He looks at Gabriel, and sighs a little. "Mister Gabriel...I don't know, really, but whatever happened, wherever it was...I know it was awful, okay?" He looks at Axiom. "I-It's not about...me bein' stuck in that. Maybe it'd be good, maybe it'd be bad...I don't know. But...I've got this feelin' that somethin' bad could be out there, still--lookin' for me. And I don't want it to find me...'cause then anybody around me might get hurt. S-So...this is the best thing. Me goin' around to different places, tryin' not to make a lot of noise...it works, okay? It's fine. I-I want to be livin' better too, but I don't want to cause anybody any trouble even more."
Category:Log