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It's dark, the sky doesn't even have the decency to be black, though, it's just mottled with low-hanging clouds, dark and ferrous grey. Every once in a while, one of them crackles with dry-energy in the summer melt: heat lightning. It throws long shadows down the alleyways, paints warped silhouettes across shallow puddles and beaten-up streets.
Footsteps.
Finley glances up at the sky as lightning strikes, brows creasing a little. What would it feel like to get struck by lightning as a vampire? It's not technically fire--but now probably isn't the time to think about experiments.
Zhe keeps close to Calamity as they walk, hands tucked into zher coat pockets. Mask on their face. The usual.
Even in the heat, Calamity's got their sweatshirt on. It's unzipped, and the sleeves are shoved up past their elbows, but they haven't conceded that it's summer yet. The cherry of their cigarette dimly illuminates their face, and they take a drag before laughing softly at something Finley's said. Their bandanna is tied loosely around their neck, and their hood is down - they're clearly comfortable enough with the company that they don't bother to try to hide themself like they usually do.
"Wish it would fuckin' rain..." they mutter. "Might kill the heat a little."
Click, click, click, crunch, splish, click, those footsteps round the bend, and five - no - six refrigerator sized thugs move into view, dingy yellow bandanas hanging out of their pockets, tied around their necks, or covering the lower half of their faces.
"Well, well," one of them says in a thick Philly accent. "Whadowe got here?"
Finley looks up and blinks at the thugs, then frowns over at Calamity, trying to tell if they recognize them. But zhe already looks uncertain.
"...You got some fuckin' nerve, this far outta your own turf..." Calamity talks through their cigarette. "Not satisfied with your asses gettin' beat last time? Neutral ground here's anyone's game..."
"It certainly is," the voice returns, and it's coming from one of them, actually the smallest, mouth covered by his bandana. He steps forward. "And this being lawless territory as it is," he supposes, "Guess that means, s'really no reason to be fair about it." As if on queue, the half dozen of them start to encircle Finley and Calamity, forming a half-circle around them, a perimeter, and inching to close it.
Calamity inches backward, and reaches a hand out to Finley. Confirming their presence, maybe? Looking for comfort? "You can run Fin - they're not gonna chase you," they mutter.
"Cal..." Finley murmurs, less scared and more worried about them. Zhe steps closer to them, moving to put zher back to their's. "I'm not leaving you..."
"That's adorable!" one of the goons jeers as they get closer. "Tell you what, when you're laid out, face down in a puddle, we'll make sure your unconscious bodies are holding hands." And then he rears back to throw a haymaker at Calamity.
The first few of them start to move in on Calamity immediately, drawn like moths to a flame towards the color of that 'other-gang' bandana, launching punches and throwing kicks in a semi-coordinated barrage that sees several shots land.
Calamity grunts in pain as the hits land, and rushes toward the first dude with their fist pulled back. The punch goes a little wide, glancing off his stomach rather than connecting to do any real damage, and Calamity skips away, moving back toward Finley.
"Leave them alone," Finley yells as zhe hears the blows land on Calamity, though doesn't risk glancing back in case Calamity brings out fire. Zhe doesn't move much at all, really--except for putting zhemself defensively between Calamity and the goons on this side of the circle. But then the street starts to darken, the shadows growing more looming and ominous, a feel of dread spreading out from the Nosferatu. Then a large illusionary rat comes skittering out of the gutter and around the feet of one of the Goons that hasn't gone this turn yet.
The illusion of the large rat startles the goons, and several of them jerk back, distracted, while Calamity and Finley have an opportunity to compose themselves, but they're not put off their intentions; just caught offguard by the, you know, giant-fucking-rat. "What the fuck?" one of them yells while another barrels towards Finley. "You want the work, too?!"
The thugs that hadn't yet engaged Calamity turned their attention on Finley, and started to gang up on the Kindred, throwing hammer-fisted blows that fell like thick bricks, while the other few tried to do more damage to Calamity, shots swinging wide, panic from the illusion still distracting their minds, pulling the snap out of their punches.
Calamity shivers when the shadows deepen, leaning back into Finley just slightly, before they straighten again with a grimace. Finley can't see them, but it's pretty clear that Cal's used to being in fights like this. They dodge the punches, weaving around the gang's attacks with a feral sort of grace. It helps that the goons attacking them seem to be pretty terrified.
They put a hand behind their back, and come away with a small knife, lunging forward toward one of the goons. But it doesn't land, and they pull back again with a growl of anger.
Finley gasps and grunt, arms lifting defensively--but they're... pretty useless at avoiding the blows, alas. They wince, some of the damage under their clothes mending. Then they focus on one of the goons that had hit them, eyes narrowing.
One of the goons went in to swing on Finley, but had a .... sudden desertion fortitude? He backs up, eyes rounding and widening, shoving one of his fellows out of the way as he scrambles to flee, to tear off down the alleyway. "Fuck this!" he shouts. "Fuck this!" he yells again, feet beating and pounding down the pavement.
It just happens that he shoves his compatriot as he's about to unload a punch towards Finley, off-centering him enough to unbalance to blow, and make it swing wide. The goons attacking Calamity, though, have more luck, landing a few blows, though none clean.
Calamity yells in anger this time as the blows hit, and responds with another lunge toward the goons, but doesn't manage to stick the knife anywhere except air. "Fuck -" they gasp out, and grope around in their pocket.
"Cal--are you okay?" Finley gasps, looking over zher shoulder for a quick glance at them worriedly. Seeing the people ganging up on them, zher narrows zher eyes onto Goon 2.
The targeted thug sneers at Finley, but as the eye contact seeps in, he sees something that horrifies him, and he swipes, pawing at the air blindly, lashing out in an animal defense mechanism, and peels away from the group, while the rest take savage swings at the pair, blind to whatever they saw.
"I told you... to leave them alone!" Finley shrieks, growing more angry as Calamity gets more hurt--thankfully the mask keeps their fangs from being seen...
Calamity staggers, grabbing Finley's hand before they fall, squeezing once to hopefully reassure the Kindred, before charging at the first goon. Their knife flashes as heat lightning forks across the sky.
As yet another of their compatriots shrieks and tears off into the night, the first of their number makes a gutteral, grunting sound as a small, piercing blade slips in between his rips, slashing him open and spilling dark red blood into the dreary puddles.
"You little fucking shit!" he snarls, and the three of them remaining all converge on Calamity!
The goons are distracted, enraged! But distracted, and their shots all seem to fall outside, clattering on Calamity's guard or missing by millimeters.
Finley tries to push zher way in between Calamity and at least one of the goons--glaring, eyes narrowed menacingly.
"Fuck you!" Calamity yells, and staggers toward the leader. Their knife does fuckall as they swipe at him desperately, and they move to Finley's side again.
Incensed, the remaining goons, the lonely pair of them, pummel more blows at Calamity -- and then it happens.
Calamity doubles over with a wheeze when a blow lands directly in their stomach - and then the air explodes around them. A car window down the street shatters, the alarm blaring, and a crack spiderwebs up the concrete building next to them. Calamity themself screams out in pain and stumbles, and blood starts to flow properly from their already broken nose.
"Fuck -" they whimper, and turn their head with difficulty to see what's become of Finley.
Calamity's scream is enough to send Finley over the edge from rage into monster. Thankfully, the explosion sends them knocked over to the ground--but it also sends the mask flying, which makes it all the more clear that Finley isn't in control right now, as zhe bares a mouth full of fangs at the remaining goon and shoves up to their feet to close the distance.
Fin is... still very much frenzying and hungry and wants these fuckers to die so is going to lunge on the knocked out goon that is not on fire, and... well. Go to town. Nomnom.
Calamity's eyes widen in fear at the frenzying Kindred, and staggers toward the guy who's not unconscious. Their lighter flickers ominously as they go, and when they get close to him, a grim smile slides onto their face.
"Stay the fuck out of my turf, asshole."
And then they shove the lighter against the man's leg, holding it there for a few seconds and just. Staring at him while they do. Not breaking eye contact until his eyes roll back and he goes limp.
"Fuck you."
Finley grabs onto the knocked out goon with surprising strength. Calamity has never seen what feeding is like from the other side, but they get the feeling this... is far different from the careful bites they've felt. This is... brutal, violent, and bloody. Fin's mouth of jagged teeth rip into the man's throat, blood getting everywhere as zhe starts to drink deeply.
"Fin" it's a whimper. "- Fuckin stop you're - you're gonna kill him...you don't gotta..." They don't step toward zhem, though, and flip their lighter closed.
Calamity's words seem to fall on deaf ears. Finley's teeth only sink deeper, like a dog possessively biting into their bone. The man is growing increasingly pale.
"Finley - stop please - he's gonna die! We can't - we gotta get outta here before someone sees..." Their voice cracks with fear as they watch in mounting horror.
Finley's dark eyes, almost all pupil, roll up to stare at Calamity. The beast acknowledging them, but not yet willing to calm. Zhe lets out a muffled, gurgled growl of warning as they continue sucking, teeth ripping further into the man's throat, hands gripping the body to pull closer possessively.
"They - we won, we can leave 'em here, they don't have to die. Gonna make it so much worse for me if one of 'em does, they're not gonna leave B an' F alone 'til one of us pays." Calamity's voice is growing increasingly desperate and they grip their lighter like they're planning on opening it.
Finley lets go--but only long enough to roar a bloodthirsty scream at Calamity, before going back to burying teeth into the man's neck. It's hard to imagine how anyone could survive damage like this. There's blood everywhere--all over Finley's face, the ground, the man...
At the roar, Calamity whimpers and takes a step backward. When they open their mouth again to speak, their lip splits, blood welling in the wound before starting to drip sluggishly toward their chin.
"Fin - I -" it's weak, and before they can make another sound, their eyes flicker shut and their legs collapse under them. They hit the ground hard, and their lighter goes skittering away as their arms splay across the sidewalk.
Calamity wakes up about seven minutes later, propped up against a wall in an alley. It probably takes a moment for them to get their bearings, but they recognize the neighborhood well enough--it looks like they've been carried a couple blocks away from the scene. They don't immediately see Fin.
"...Fin?" Their voice is weak, their breathing shaky.
Whelp--Calamity soon realizes there is... a corpse resting on the ground beside him, the man's throat looking like hamburger meat at this point.
A moment later, Finley comes walking down the alley, carrying a second, similarly gory corpse.
Calamity whimpers and tries to move away, putting their scraped and bruised hand over their mouth as they do. They manage not to vomit, but don't get far, hissing in pain.
"Fuck," they whisper. "Fuck fuck fuck we're so fucked...Fin - what -"
Finley drops the corpse down beside the other before looking down at Calamity. There's clearly something... off about zhem. Zhe clearly isn't frenzying anymore, but there's something predatory in zher eyes, hungry despite clearly gorging themself. "I've hidden the corpses from view. It'll buy us some time," zhe murmurs. "Someone is coming to help get rid of them."
"What - happened Fin you - you look..." they frown. "You look hungry."
The birds which come swooping down from the sky are not wearing pants. There was some debate as to whether or not there would be pants. Fox, however, retains some dignity.
Only some, though, because the two birds which come swooping in? One is a stellar sea eagle, and quite huge. And sitting on her back is the tiniest little puffball of a bird, brilliantly bright in color. Just chillin'. Bein' a lazy bird. She'll do the big work once she arrives.
"Lost control," zhe murmurs distractedly--they haven't bothered to wash the blood of zher face. "I hid you, too. No one should be able to see us." Zhe glances around, then pulls out zher blood splattered phone to poke at.
And indeed, when the mages arrive... they don't see either of them, or the corpses. But magic no doubt picks up living signatures and stuff. Or. Well. Cal is the only one living, but you know what I mean.
The larger of the birds is the one doing all the flapping, and flap it does as it cruises in toward the ground, slows itself, and then flaps to come in to land lightly on the ground. The eagle's head turns as it scans the area, looking for signs of what they're there for. Or signs of danger.
Zhe glances up as the birds swoop down, squinting. ...Yeah, that's definitely the fox-person. When the birds land, Finley walks over and gives a little bap onto each of them--not enough to do damage, but enough to break Obfuscate and allow the birbs to see the gore-covered vampire.
"...You okay?" Their eyebrows furrow in concern, because of course they're concerned about Fin's wellbeing. The birds make them frown still more, and they lean away. "What the fuck...?"
The bap to Fox's little brilliant-blue head makes them go peep! quite offendedly, but then he sees: ah! it's Finley. A fluttering flap off of the back of the eagle, and Fox's little wings work the air quite hard as she swoops over the messy ground. Peep peep! A swoop past Calamity and over the bodies, and then Fox returns to where the eagle is, landing in front of her. This is, apparently, some sort of signal, because the spell is released a moment later.
A sort of full-body yawn, and then there's a barefoot little grubby woman in a pair of cut-off jeans and a tank top that says SLEEVES ARE BORING across the chest. Mei gets to pose what she looks like. "Hey, Calamity, hey Fin," Fox offers, as if this is all pretty normal. "So. Priority. Dead bodies or bleeding ones?"
Mei makes a startled face at Finley when bopped, and a massive eagle's surprised face is kind of silly looking, actually. She takes a couple of steps back, wings coming up, and then realizes this isn't an ambush and she also can't do kung fu as an eagle. When the signal comes she readies herself, and then turns into a woman in jeans and a black tank top. She squints at Calamity for just a second and says, "hey, I know you, don't I? What the heck happened?"
"I'll be fine," Finley snaps at Calamity, likely more harshly than zhe means to. Then zhe watches as the birbs flap around then turn back into people, not looking very phased about this, still... off and on edge. Probably the whole... murder thing. Zhe glances back towards Calamity, then towards Fox. "Bodies." Zhe pauses to look around, listening for heartbeats, then nods to where the corpses are laying. Obfuscate fades then, showing two men with torn apart throats and very, very pale bodies. And yellow bandanas. "Hi," zhe murmurs to Mei, keeping zher eyes locked on where the bodies are laying.
Calamity takes in the transformation of both Fox and Mei with a slighlty open mouth. They're slumped against the wall, legs out in front of them, and look...fucking brutalized. Their nose is broken, still dripping blood, and two black eyes stand out sharply against their freckled face.
"Fox - uh. Hey." Their voice is a little raspy, and they squint slightly at Mei. "...Maybe?"
Now that the bodies aren't obfuscated, it's pretty clear that Finley... uh... tried to fucking devour them. And probably did, considering how pale they look. And there is, uh, a lot of blood on Fin. But there's not enough blood here on the ground to suggest that they died here--so likely Fin dragged them here from somewhere else.
"You look like shit," Fox informs Calamity. There's no real poison or vituperativeness in it: Fox is just speaking facts. "Right." They stretch their arms up above their head and shake out their arms as if shaking water from their fingers, then wrap her fingers around the wooden coin necklace secured around their throat on a leather thong. She stomps her feet on the ground twice and snarls, and there's a moment where the air around Fox is -- for those who can sense the Supernal -- vibrant and alive, the scent of petrichor and fresh-mown grass, before...
... the bodies just sort of ... fall... apart... and stop existing.
Mei waves a hand. "Not important," she says about the knowing Calamity from somewhere thing. It's neither here nor there at the moment, right? She takes a second to look around at the scene again, looks at Finley, looks around at the bodies again as they start to disappear. "Huh," she says before she looks at Finley again. "You're alright now? And I don't mean injured."
Finley stares at the bodies as they fall apart with a look of fascination. It takes a moment after they're completely gone for Finley to blink and look over at Mei. "...Yes," zhe murmurs. "I'll be okay. Just..." Zhe hesitates. "It's a lot. Coming out of--that state." Zhe looks to Fox. "Can you destroy the blood too, if I take you to where it happened?"
"'Ve had worse," Calamity mutters to Fox with a shrug. It sure does take a while for them to get to their feet though, and they put a hand to their ribs as they do. "Jesus..." they whisper as the bodies disintegrate, and make their way closer to Finley. Their movements are tentative, and they're still focusing on the spot where the bodies were. "Gonna be so much fuckin' trouble..."
A deep breath in, a slow breath out, and Fox shakes their head like a canine shaking water out of their ears. "Yeah, I can get rid of the blood. What the fuck happened? Or do I not want to know?" She doesn't seem bothered at all by standing in an alley or on the broken pavement of Philly with bare feet. "Yeah, well, having had worse doesn't mean you've not got the shit beat out of you now."
It takes a few moments to put some things together but it clicks when Calamity comments on 'fuckin' trouble'. "Huh," she says. "What were the Yellow Jackets doing out here in B&F territory? This is kind of out of their way." She looks at Calamity. "I take it that's not news to you for whatever reason, though?"
"We were just... walking," zhe says with a glance to Calamity. "Minding our own business. Six guys came up and started harassing us. They started to beat up Calamity. I scared most of them away, but by the time it was just these two left, Calamity was... really hurt. I lost control and when I came back to my senses..." Zhe shrugs lightly, nodding to where the bodies were. Mei gets a frown, but zhe doesn't comment on the gang stuff.
"Be fine. I heal fast." Calamity waves their hand at Fox. Funnily enough, their black eyes do seem to be fading already. "I uh...had a run in with 'em a couple weeks ago. Waitin' for a bus on their turf - with Phaedra -" Calamity clarifies to Finley. "They picked me out...an' got their asses handed to 'em. They're prob'ly up here for that, seein' if we're still up for a fight." A shrug. "An' now they're sure as hell not gonna leave it alone."
"Oh." Fox scratches her cheek with one of her grubby hands, and shrugs at Calamity. People have a right to stay bleeding, Fox isn't going to force healing on people. "Aight. Well. That sounds like an unfortunate turn of events but uh... start shit get bit, I guess."
"Where's the other stuff you want me to destroy?"
"What a bunch of idiotic nonsense," Mei says with a roll of her eyes. "At least to lose a life over, anyway. Or a few lives for that matter." She lets out a sigh but seems to be fine with just moving on.
"We'll take care of it," Finley assures Calamity, jaw clenching. Almost snarling their many, many sharp teeth. Zhe takes an unnecessary breath and nods to Fox. "Just down the street. Didn't want to stick around unless someone called the police or the ones that ran off came back..." Zhe steps out of the alley and heads down the street to another secluded, gritty side street that has... a lot of blood on the ground.
"Fuckers ruined our night," Calamity mutters, pushing away from the wall. "Fuckin' sorry I didn't land anything on more of 'em. You want us to come with, Fin?"
Pap pap pap, Fox followes after. "If you could make sure no one sees me, that would be... really great, Finley, thank you." Fox looks over their shoulder at zher, as she wanders up and down the street. Yeah, walking right through the blood, as though it doesn't matter a bit. (It doesn't.) She makes a bit of a face.
Mei doesn't stand in the blood, even though it's probably going to disappear shortly, but she does follow along to the other crime scene. "That's an awful lot of blood," she remarks with some dismay, but it doesn't seem like it's the first time she's seen something like this.
"If you want," Finley says back to Calamity as they go.
Finley nods to Fox, looking around. "I don't hear any heartbeats coming. Or see anyone. You should be good."
Calamity follows slowly, wincing every time they take a step but otherwise not complaining. "Fuck..." they mutter, looking around at the blood.
And once again: Fox spreads out their hands, but there's less display to her spellcasting this time: she rolls her eyes back in her head, stretching her Supernal intent out over the pavement, over the spattered blood, and lets out a long sigh as the blood just... stops... existing. It doesn't turn into water, it doesn't fizz or turn into smoke or anything of the like. It just. Stops. Being.
"Right." She pauses, and turns to look over her shoulder at Mei. "Maybe I missed my calling. I should tell the others it's time for me to take up a mask." She's kidding, of course. Fox would make a fucking awful Guardian. Insert joke about 'just fucking Guardians instead' here.
At a certain point you have to start making jokes in order to deal with the horrible nature of some of the things you see, which is why Mei ends up saying, "if you do, you should get a luchador mask, Zorrita." She knows Fox isn't going to join the Guardians.
Finley's head tilts, staring downwards at the blood as it... ceases to exist. Zher brows crease a moment before exhaling. The blood on zher also faded, no doubt. Which helps zhem look less monstrous, at least. "Thank you, Fox. I owe you a big one."
As hurt as Calamity is, they still watch Fox work with an intense fascination, their mouth opening slightly when the blood ceases to be. "Holy shit..." they whisper, and turn to give her a small smile. "'S cool as hell."
Fingerguns for Mei. "I'd only wear a luchadore mask if I could tell people that I see them with their villain moustaches." Someone just rewatched Sense8, apparently. Yep, you make jokes to deal with the terrible stuff. Blood doesn't seem to bother Fox at all, though. Nature red in tooth and claw and all that. She shrugs sort of sheepishly. "It's all in the job description," she answers both Finley and Calamity. "Everyone cool?"
"I'm going to need a drink," Mei says as she shakes her head. "I'm just thinking about whoever ends up spending their time trying figure out what happened to those poor fools." She looks at Calamity and Finley, frowns, and shakes her head again as she turns away and looks up at the sky.
Finley glances at Mei, then looks down at the now bloodless ground, hands burying into their pockets. "...Yeah, guess so. ...We probably shouldn't linger around here for very long."
"Yeah 'm cool - thanks." Calamity offers Fox a small smile, wincing as their lip threatens to split. And then shrugs at Mei. "Fingers're gonna point to B+F. Like fuckin' right away. We'll deal, with two of 'em gone we got a better chance of holdin' our own 'f it comes to full-on war." They don't seem concerned about the fact that someone might be worried about the two dead guys.
"I should uh...prob'ly go clean up. 'Fore someone comes along an' wants to know why 'm covered in..." they look down, and seem to register the fact that they aren't, in fact, covered in blood anymore, and look up at Fox again. "Holy shit - you can just...do that?"
There's a sort of awkward look that passes over Fox's face when Calamity gets all surprised, and she shrugs her shoulders. "I was doing area of effect, basically?" she offers, rubbing a hand on her cheek and scrunching up her shoulders. "Any blood that wasn't -- you know -- in a person, in this area, I got rid of. So that I couldn't possibly miss any." And then she frowns thoughtfully, adding, "You know, it didn't seem to bother you," she notes aside to Finley, "And now that I think about that I'm relieved because ... usually the dividing line is 'is it alive anymore.'" Because gosh it would have been inconvenient if Fox had accidentally the whole blood out of Finley.
Good thing that requires Death.
"We can go get a drink, Mei. And ... uh... hopefully I didn't ruin your investigations, before." Sorry not sorry?
"Not you, necessarily, but I wonder how many weeks or months of my life I wasted trying to figure out what happened in a case like this," Mei says with a shrug. "That time is gone now. Nothing I can do about it now." She looks at Calamity. "There are some weird things in the world," she says.
"Um..." Finley blinks at Fox. "Thanks for... not removing the blood from me, yeah. That'd be... bad..." Zhe frowns at Mei for a moment, then looks aside, quiet for a moment. "...Let's go home, Calamity," zhe murmurs, reaching to take their hand.
Calamity shudders, looking between Fox and Finley. "Yeah, that'd be..." they don't seem to have an adjective for the level of awfulness that they're trying to convey, so they just trail off.
"'S a lotta weird shit in the world," they agree with Mei, and twines their fingers with Finley's, holding zher hand tightly. "Home's good. yeah."
"Yeah, I imagine it would be." Fox props her hands on her hips and looks over at Mei for a moment. "You wanna fly home, or you wanna call a Lyft?" He chucks his chin up at Calamity and Finley. "Don't worry about owing me or anything. This keeps messes out of our shared reality, so, like, my partners don't have to clean them up later. Be safe."
Finley nods to Fox. "Okay. Well... I still really appreciate it. This... has helped so much. Um, if I can ever help you, don't hesitate to call..." Zhe looks to Mei. "It was nice to meet you. Maybe we can talk under better circumstances, sometime... Goodnight." Zhe glances to Calamity, then starts to lead them away down the street.
"You two take care," Mei says to the pair of strangers. "I hope I see you around, and next time, yeah... better circumstances." She lets out a soft laugh and then looks at Fox. "Honestly? I just want to fly home, grab a drink, and soak in the hot tub." Presumably there's a hot tub in Zoya's apartment, if there's a pool.
"Okay, then," agrees Fox. A breath later, there are two crows, not two people, and then Fox flies away.
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