New York, Wednesday Evening
"Why don't you crawl back under the rock you evolved out from under?"
Charming. Jonothon's lip curled back as he took another boot to his ribs, craning his neck to be certain that the kid with the vestigial tail had gotten away safely. Lucky him, poor little sod, he'd managed to escape. It was fairly obvious that, like Jono himself, the boy had formerly been a mutant. And, so far as the world went these days, his reality was a bit of a crap one to be a former mutant in.
Then again, from what he'd read in the paper about Tony Stark and his new superhuman registration program, it was a bit of a crap one to be a current mutant in, too. So, really, it seemed the more things changed, the more they stayed the same after all. No wonder he'd been checking his phone for the past two days for some sort of news that the island was safe to return to. In retrospect, the thought of hiding himself away in his room for a few days didn't feel so terrible, now.
"Come on, mutie. No special powers to beat us off with? No eye-lasers or claws? What kind of freak are you?"
Jonothon's answering quip was nothing more than a grunt as he rolled over on the ground, trying like hell to get his focus back. There were more of them than he could handle. They'd been picking on some kid whose only crime was looking a little different, still bearing the last traces of a far more visible mutation that had been stripped from him on M-Day.
And Jono, idiot bleeding heart that he was, had spoken up, stepped in, tried to get them to lay off. Hadn't realized there'd been a big, nasty one coming up behind him until he'd gotten the brick to the back of his skull. It had been just one more moment when that sixth sense he'd used to deny he ever had would have come in fairly handy, and instead he'd gone down like a large slate-grey sack of meat. Bastard went and took one of his old favourite signature moves on him. How was that even fair?
"Not even going to get up again?" The taunt was punctuated with the heavy heel of a boot, coming down hard on Jonothon's back. "Where are your X-Men now, gene-trash?"
A hiss between his teeth, turning glowing red eyes up at the man who was talking. Picturing so many ways he'd like to take that man by the throat and just squeeze, how satisfying it would be to give his hand a solid twist and feel the bones in his neck sna--
"Fuck'im. He's not even a mutie, just like the rest of them. He's just ugly. Ain't no sport in ugly."
One more parting shot, a good one right to the kidneys that, in retrospect, Jono hadn't actually missed all that much back in the day, and he was left to lick his wounds in peace. And with nowhere to retreat to, all of his former GenX teammates apparently having made themselves far more scarce than he'd anticipated in the wake of M-Day, the best he was going to get, for the time being, was around the corner, deeper into the alleyway that he'd been lured into in the first place.
He gave himself a quick pat-down, making certain that nothing he was going to need later was seriously broken, and then sighed, buried himself under his coat, and let himself give in to a bit of blissful unconsciousness. Maybe by the time he woke up again, the world might be so kind as to stop spinning around him like that.
But he doubted it.
[NFB for distance, and pulled totally out of my bum because being mean to Jono is going to be the name of the game, this week. Open for phone calls if anyone wants to pester him when he comes to, but otherwise, just establishy.]
Charming. Jonothon's lip curled back as he took another boot to his ribs, craning his neck to be certain that the kid with the vestigial tail had gotten away safely. Lucky him, poor little sod, he'd managed to escape. It was fairly obvious that, like Jono himself, the boy had formerly been a mutant. And, so far as the world went these days, his reality was a bit of a crap one to be a former mutant in.
Then again, from what he'd read in the paper about Tony Stark and his new superhuman registration program, it was a bit of a crap one to be a current mutant in, too. So, really, it seemed the more things changed, the more they stayed the same after all. No wonder he'd been checking his phone for the past two days for some sort of news that the island was safe to return to. In retrospect, the thought of hiding himself away in his room for a few days didn't feel so terrible, now.
"Come on, mutie. No special powers to beat us off with? No eye-lasers or claws? What kind of freak are you?"
Jonothon's answering quip was nothing more than a grunt as he rolled over on the ground, trying like hell to get his focus back. There were more of them than he could handle. They'd been picking on some kid whose only crime was looking a little different, still bearing the last traces of a far more visible mutation that had been stripped from him on M-Day.
And Jono, idiot bleeding heart that he was, had spoken up, stepped in, tried to get them to lay off. Hadn't realized there'd been a big, nasty one coming up behind him until he'd gotten the brick to the back of his skull. It had been just one more moment when that sixth sense he'd used to deny he ever had would have come in fairly handy, and instead he'd gone down like a large slate-grey sack of meat. Bastard went and took one of his old favourite signature moves on him. How was that even fair?
"Not even going to get up again?" The taunt was punctuated with the heavy heel of a boot, coming down hard on Jonothon's back. "Where are your X-Men now, gene-trash?"
A hiss between his teeth, turning glowing red eyes up at the man who was talking. Picturing so many ways he'd like to take that man by the throat and just squeeze, how satisfying it would be to give his hand a solid twist and feel the bones in his neck sna--
"Fuck'im. He's not even a mutie, just like the rest of them. He's just ugly. Ain't no sport in ugly."
One more parting shot, a good one right to the kidneys that, in retrospect, Jono hadn't actually missed all that much back in the day, and he was left to lick his wounds in peace. And with nowhere to retreat to, all of his former GenX teammates apparently having made themselves far more scarce than he'd anticipated in the wake of M-Day, the best he was going to get, for the time being, was around the corner, deeper into the alleyway that he'd been lured into in the first place.
He gave himself a quick pat-down, making certain that nothing he was going to need later was seriously broken, and then sighed, buried himself under his coat, and let himself give in to a bit of blissful unconsciousness. Maybe by the time he woke up again, the world might be so kind as to stop spinning around him like that.
But he doubted it.
[NFB for distance, and pulled totally out of my bum because being mean to Jono is going to be the name of the game, this week. Open for phone calls if anyone wants to pester him when he comes to, but otherwise, just establishy.]