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This is not a good night in Fairhill tonight, whatever reasons might bring people in this particular subsection of this area of Philadelphia, it was probably not fate playing in your favor.
The sky above is overcast, the lamp post are lighting up and some of them only flickering, a cool wind is rising and it's looking like rain is coming soon.
The streets have cleared to avoid the weather, for the most part, a few unlucky soul are still out there, going about their business.
Several loud impacts and screams of distress that sounds like a fight happening nearby suddenly comes from an area behind a building that seems marked as 'closed' for renovation, many graffiti tags and various obscene images are drawn on the side. Including a stylized Gritty face.
"OH GOD! SOMEONE HELP!" the scream goes loudly into the night. Another loud metallic impact is heard. Another voice rise up in the night, unintelligible from the distance.
Ylva had just finished up work at the Outreach Center and was heading home when she heard it. Beast senses tuning towards it and she takes off running.
Aya was passing through Fairhill, having visited a nearby cemetery and grabbing a coffee. She had been looking for a discreet place to go to apportate home when she heard the noise and began making her way towards the sound of trouble.
If she was being honest, the sound of someone being attacked made Lauren's blood sing, and there was a smile on her face as she ran towards the sound. Not that she was happy that someone might be getting hurt, but it was a chance to do something. Maybe even make a difference
Sometimes a person is out digging through the trash as a fox, and hears someone calling for help. Fox takes a deep breath and finds a dumpster to dash behind, unfolding herself from her vulpine form into her normal form. 'Normal.' Yes. A tiny woman in a tank top and shorts, barefoot, in February in Philly. That's very normal. Her fingers curl into a yantra, hiding herself from sight and sound and machines.
-Kaminari was nearby watching from the rooftops above, her gaze moves as the situation unfolds. The rain sinks into her clothing, she spies some of the others but choose to remain on the high ground for the moment-
The area immediately around the building carries an unpleasant mesh of smells, blood, smoke and a relatively heavy note of ozone.
The sudden rush of people to the location find a poorly lit alley between the buildings.
A heavy set man in a plaid shirt and a pair of jeans is trying to melt into the fencing around the terrain of the adjacent building, eyes widened in terror as he stares on the horrific spectacle he seems to be witnessing.
Another man lies down on its face dressed in black slacks and a black sweater, pants torn on the right side from the belt to the knee, blood pooling beneath his head. The nearby construction dumpster has a dent on its side with blood splatter.
Lights flicker for a moment, but seems to return to normal once the first few people rush in after hearing the commotion.
Ylva takes a quick moment to subtly activate Talon and Wing, spending the Glamour then rushing over to the man on the ground. Nose flaring from all the input of smells.
She closes Forces around herself, cloaking sound and sight, and hides herself from machines, before moving at her fastest walking speed toward the source of the sound. Fox Prime-cloaks her workings, so that she doesn't splash her Nimbus all over the place or ping peripheral Mage Sight. Lesja and Zoya should be so proud. As she moves, she continues casting -- speeding herself up, protecting herself from temporal manipulations. All cloaked, all hidden. "Fuck," she whispers, but no one hears it.
Aya runs over to the man on the ground, as well. It takes her a moment to register that Ylva is among those who've rushed to this scene, but she only acknowledges it with a nod for now. She tries to assess the man's general condition as she reaches for her phone.
Lauren comes to a halt at the entrance to the alley. There are others attending to the wounded man so she finds some shadow to pull the Cloak of Night around herself before moving further into the alley. There's a victim, and an observer, but no assailant? Not good. Not good at all.
-The only thing that would mark the presence of Izumi at the moment would be a few random splashed her and there from her running towards the commotion-
For those using medical assessment on the victim, it seems as if his condition is critical and that medical assistance is required in the shortest of delays.
Those only now rushing in and trying to assess further, find that Aya has something special about her. There is other magic afoot as well, but pinging it precisely seems to be completely impossible at the moment.
The terrified man finally slinks down, his back against the chain link fence and just stares at the wounded man. He seems to be trying to speak but is unable to form coherent words.
Ylva doesnt have much to work with but she does her best to try and stabilize the man bleeding out on the floor. Giving them long enough to get out of this shit show.
Aya looks to Ylva as she gets to work trying to stabilize the bleeding man and nods, then moves over to the terrified man. She speaks to him in a calm voice, offering as much reassurance as she can muster, "It's okay, help is here. Take some deep breaths, focus on your breathing, listen to my voice."
-She continues running along the roof tops, currently following some of the other screams. Her mind on preventing more collateral damage from happening than has already been inflicted-
Fox doesn't actually move. Even if she were visible, she'd be very boring to look at. Her hands curl their fingers in repetitive yantras, and the Matter Master and Orphan of Proteus scans for Siderite sources, both those present now and those which were previously in a five-block radius around her current position.
The man seems relatively calm following Aya's attempt at calming him, he takes a deep breath and seems to shake out of it. "I don't know if we should call the cops." He finally says.
He looks to both potential exit for him out of the alley. "I need to get the fuck out before it finds me."
Meanwhile, Izumi running around to make sure there's no further damage done in the vicinity does not find any signs of other (related) screams to the situation.
However, right across the street from where the events are taking place, there is a police cruiser parked. No one inside, no lights on. No one forgotten in the backseat.
Ylva looks to Aya. "Do you want me to get them out of here? Take them to the Community Center. We have an infirmary there while we wait for assistance."
"We'll help you get out of here," she says to the man to reassure him, then looks and nods to Ylva, "Yes, we should get them to safety, I think."
She pulls out her phone, probably getting blood on it for not the first time and calls Lee. "Hey, can I get you and Mark to come to {Insert Address here}, need to bring two people back to the Center, tell Alex to ready the Infirmary."
Nodding to a response she pockets the phone and looks to Aya.
"They shouldnt be too long."
-The cloaked Izumi remains on top of the building for a few moments before she begins to peer into the past of the area to attempt and see what transpired leading up the to vehicle's arrival-
"Is he going to be okay?" The terrified man asks, having a hard time looking away from the wounded man. "He never saw it coming."
The spells going off seems to go unnoticed by their surroundings and the information trickles in in real time.
"He just wanted to ask me a few question about some stuff, I see a lot of people at my bar, but he didn't want to come there..."
"Wait where are we going?" He asks, curious.
Fox remains invisible, but cognizant of what's going on around her. She fast forwards and rewinds, taking in the whole scene.
Provided there's nothing Weird going on in Twilight, Proper Ratthew goes scampering off to the police car. It is possible to climb up through the engine block of a Crown Vic and climb out through the glove box, if you're a rat, so guess what Proper Ratthew does? Yep. He does exactly that. He's listening to the scanner, if there is one, and climbing around looking for paperwork.
As soon as she's got a bead on the situation, Fox keys up Forces to hijack the signal from the cop's phone and alter it so that it's coming from an unmarked phone number. Once she's got that signal, it's time to start blasting off text messages to pass on information.
"We'll be going to a community outreach center where we can get him some medical assistance and make sure you're alright, too." All calm, sympathy, and good vibes as she speaks to the man and explains the plan just enough to know he's going somewhere safe.
As Aya said that Mark and Lee arrived around the corner, they had clearly been running. Mark was carrying a big old first aid kit and Lee was just this hulking bouncer type guy. Lee hangs back and lets Mark go forward.
Ylva looks to them and nods speaking quietly, slipping into work mode. "This guy isnt doing great but seems stable. Its him and the person over there with Aya. Can you go talk to him."
Mark nods and heads over to Aya. "Hi there, my name is Mark, I work at the nearby community outreach center, we are just going to get you out of harms way and then we can go from there okay?"
He has a very flamboyant voice as he speaks and is doing his best to be sympathetic.
A text message to all of the Firebirds as well as Lux and Vorpal comes from an unidentified phone number with a map pin: INCURSION!! ABYSSAL MARK TWO!!! 🦊 Situation stable, do not rush in. Timeline recorded. The first day I met Lesja I convinced her to buy me 2 bags of pelmeni.
[Images attached of Ylva and Aya, along with the injured cop and the informant he was talking to.]
These two are taking the injured to a community center. I would let Ylva know I am here but neither of them have ever met Agoston or Ratthew. I'm completely hidden.
[Image attached of a headless Mark Two with one arm.]
[Gif of Tom Hardy as a soldier from Band of Brothers reading a newspaper, the subtitle on the gif reads: ...the Germans... are bad.]
While this series of messages gets sent, all neatly encrypted, Fox is just kinda standing there, waiting for Ratthew to finish his surveillance in the car, and being invisible and soundless herself.
Greg looks back at The police man being carted, carefully, around and seems willing enough to go along with the two ladies. "Last time I fucking deal with cops, I'm not getting Officer Murphy'd over some random questions."
There is no siren in the distance, even as the rain starts in earnest, cold and windy.
As the two are escorted away, Lauren lets her Cloak of Night drop, though she stays close to a wall. "I don't like this at all," she says quietly. "If that guy was a cop, you'd think there'd be at least a couple others coming to check up on stuff by now"
-Izumi moves towards the parked police car to where the lights flickered and starts scrubbing through Time once more to see which way the lights go-
Rainbow [She/Her] ASYNC me Daddy — Today at 9:49 PM
Ylva grimaces slightly as they start heading off, she hadnt known he was a cop but still jumped into action. Lee picking up the fallen cop and Mark leading Greg.
They start heading towards the Fairhill Community Center. Making idle conversation with Aya as they go.
"This wasnt exactly my plan for how you were first going to see the Center."
Aya nods to Ylva, "I have seen enough standard tours to last a lifetime, it's good to see something as it is. A community outreach center reaching out to the community, providing service."
She managed a gentle smile through this disturbing situation, but it changed as she thought of something, "I should possibly head back and look around.." She says those words with special emphasis she was hoping Ylva might understand as carrying deeper meaning.
It's entirely possible that Izumi will see the little rat clambering around inside the car. That's not that unusual, there are rats all over the city, after all. There are rats everywhere that there are lots of humans. That's just... civilization. What is unusual is that he's got a little red backpack on, and that when he climbs back out of the car, he closes the glove box up after himself. Most rats wouldn't do that.
Fox has learned well from her Guardian and former-Guardian lovers, and while others head off to take care of bleeding and frightened people, Fox stays behind to scrub the scene. Shed skin cells from Ylva, a dropped bit of hair from Lauren or Aya? Mmm, not on Fox's watch. Time to scrubby scrubby the timeline and the scene. None of the supernatural people or their putative allies will leave one drop of evidence behind by the time Fox is done.
ADDENDUM: Postcognition scenes
LITTLE FOX
The following scene plays out before Fox.
The Injured Man walks into the alley, where the Terrified Man is apparently waiting for him. "Hey Greg, thanks for showing up. Just got a quick question..."
The Injured man has a police badge at his belt where his pants has been torn off in real life, he produce a picture to show to Greg. "Did that guy ever cross your path?" The picture is definitely that of a slightly younger Charleville.
Greg shakes his head "Never saw it..." Greg seems terrified right then and there.
out of apparently now where a Mark unit that's missing a head, is smoking up and sparking with electricity appears his exposed torso is covered with a rather singular piece of armor. With his only One Arm, he grabs at the back of the cop's head and smash it against the nearby construction dumpster twice.
He drops the cop face first on the ground, reaches down and tears away the cop badge, along with a sizeable chunk of his pants and belt then walks back out and poof gone out of thin air.
The screams they heard appears to be both Greg's voice pitching at different octaves of terror.
KAMINARI The Postcog at the police cruiser shows, relating to current event: It's arrival, the police man checking his phone, grabbing his bad and leaving his car for the alley.
The lamp post on the streets all flicker simultaneously moment before Izumi notices the rest of the above scene play out in the same fashion
then, when the Mark unit vanishes from the alley, it's a perpendicular street's light that flickers a bit.
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