Logs!
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, March 27, 2008, 7:30 PM
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=XS= Main Computer Lab - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
White and neutral-toned, sterile and polished down to the last tile, this is a room of pure function and little form. At one end of the beige-carpeted expanse, a raised platform holds the instructor's computer, with a whiteboard and projection screen behind it. Four rows of six desks and chairs each furnish forth a lab fit for twenty four students to check their email in class at one time, on flat screen monitors and systems kept religiously upgraded and updated. A small coffee table sits beneath long, rectangular window panes that let in ample light, the only non-regulation piece of furniture. Trays filled with assignments marked and waiting to be marked have colonized it.
[Exits : [Li]brary]
Teachers are not a terribly frequent sight in the computer lab outside of classroom hours. They, after all, have their own machines to use if they need them, which are generally much spiffier than the sturdy workhorses provided for student use. But nevertheless, here is Jean, seated at one of the workstations and looking exasperated as she tries to get the seat set comfortably.
The tendency of Scott's to glance into the computer lab when he passes through the library is one that causes Scott to catch Jean working on one of the computers. He stands just inside the door leaning against the frame, "Break your computer?" Scott asks, a bare bit of a twitch of smile on his lips.
"Someone installed Vista on it," says Jean. This, apparently, is a 'yes'. "I threw it to Jareth and now I'm hoping I don't get it back with Linux on it instead." Holding one lever of her chair, she rocks in it experimentally, trying to rescue it from the low-riding perma-slouch settings favoured by teenagers. The chair protests.
A small snort, "If you threw it at him, he may send it back with fortran installed. Or Windows 3.1," is Scott's amused comment, "You could borrow the one in my room at the desk, not like it gets used all that much." Yeah, with him ever in the Danger Room, the garage, or doing some other duty.
"I -liked- 3.1," Jean sighs. "It was simple. And I got really good at Minesweeper." Giving the chair a seated variation on a hip check, she finally gets it unstuck only to have the back come shooting up and pitch her forward against the edge of the workstation. There is silence. Jean's expression is slightly profane, although nothing makes it past her lips besides "I think we're going to have to have housekeeping see about these chairs."
"As I recall from when we got these, we made sure to get ones that would be covered by warranties for use, so they'll call and get parts for them and repair them," scott says with an amused tone of mind, even if he doesn't outwardly express it right now. "So beyond the crippling of your beloved PC, everything else okay?"
"I'm not sure if it's at repair-stage yet, or just adding some fresh grease to the moving parts," says Jean, lips quirking in a quick smile at the mental amusement. "But, I suppose that's what use warranties are for. Everything's fine, though," she assures, only to pause and admit that "...and actually, that's got me surprisingly twitchy."
"Yeah, keeps me wondering if it's just the calm before the next apocalypse too," Scott admits, walking over to sit in one of the other seats, his back leaned back at an almost precarious moment before he gets the chair at least partly adjusted to the way normal humans sit, at least those not afflicted by the disease known as Teenager. "Anyone else made any progress on our other problem?" Scott asks, just an extended thumb moved up toward the ceiling with his fist. In case any students wander past. Of course, if they did, it would probably look to them like Scott is trying to hitchhike, though where that would be is anyone's guess.
"It would be nice if apocalypses around here would adhere to the actual meaning of the term and come only once," Jean reflects, with a good-natured grumble. She rises from her own chair, and after some shoving and heaving finally gets it into a shape for sitting in at last. Perforce, she sits, and favours Scott with a crooked smile. "Keep up that gesture and I'm getting you a towel," she warns, before shaking her head. "And... no. No breakthroughs yet, just a lot of steady work."
Scott rolls his eyes, even if no one can see it, "I'm not sure which I like better, the sudden disasters that we scramble to handle, or this one where we're worrying about it for so long and trying to find the impossible solution," Scott says, watching Jean for long moments as he sits back, still more reclined than he prefers.
"Well," says Jean with a distinct pinch of wry to her tone as she looks over at Scott before returning to firing up Word Perfect on the machine before her. "Look at it this way. If we screw this one up, we'll have a whole bunch of people helping us, and nobody left to say 'I told you so'."
"No, just a few of us left afterwards to say 'oops'," Scott muses back, leaning toward the pessimistic view of the situation. "I should let you get back to work and stop interrupting you," is offered as he sees her actually loading a program up to do something
"It's nothing that time-critical," Jean assures, and opts not to try and battle any glass half empty thoughts on asteroids. "I'm just working on drafting up some letters of inquiry to Habitat for Humanity. I promised the kids a trip some place tropical to do some volunteering, and I mean to follow through."
"I'm sure they'll give you the moon as an acceptable destination given the size of the donation," Scott says, shaking his head in half amusement, and some lingering disbelief at the guts of Cassy and Mira, and the initiative. "Be nice for the kids to see what good can be done in the world by them, with or without powers."
"That's what I'm hoping, at least," says Jean. "If it goes well, I might see if Ororo would kill me for handing her a few students to go with her humanitarian work over in Africa."
"Or you could just accidentally leave her some when you come back," Scott notes, the image of Storm dealing with Cassy and Mira alone rather amusing, until he thinks of the havok they could cause.
"Ooooh," says Jean, caught by this idea. "Do you suppose we could take the Blackbird out and have them parachute down to her?"
"Fine with me, but I think Ororo, and the Professor, would have a bit of a problem with us," Scott muses, amused as he adds, "Of course, we could take a lot of detours on the way back so the lecture would be delayed."
Jean flashes a grin and leaps cheerfully into the absurd. "So we arrange to have Charles parachute down as well," she suggests. "And leave them all in Africa."
Scott smirks slightly, "I suddenly feel like the English dumping criminals in Australia for some reason," Scott says as he looks at the screen saver that is on the computer he's sitting at, the twirling cube of changing shades and shapes. "We'd have to give him two parachutes or something, so he comes down in a dignified manner in his chair."
Jean's letter writing seems entirely forgotten at this point, as she leans back in her seat like one of the offending teenagers and indulges in a long stretch of her back. "Dignity is of the utmost importance," she agrees. "We might have to run Danger Room sims to be sure."
"It is, without dignity where would he be?" Scott asks with a small grin allowed himself, "I should get going. Papers to grade, and you have those letters you want to write."
"I... really have no idea," says Jean, trying for a moment to picture an undignified Xavier and failing entirely. She unsquinches her eyebrows after settling on "I'll have to ask Moira," as a solution, and gives Scott a small nod. "Good luck," she bids. "I'll be down here if you need me."
"You think the papers will endanger my health? Should I get changed into my uniform before facing the vile villain of student essays?" Scott asks, amused at the image of the papers in some way attacking him.
"Considering some of the papers I've seen...?" Jean drawls speculatively, before laughing and turning to her work. Or what will be work when she starts it, in any case.
So Charles, how do you feel about parachuting into Africa?
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Sunday, March 30, 2008, 7:51 PM
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=XS= Gymnasium - Lv B2 - Xavier's School
Far more tame than the vexing challenges of the Danger Room, the school's Gymnasium is no less enormous. Some of the equipment is a bit unorthodox, but other than that it's a standard-issue gym, the floors mapped out with the designs for a basketball court (to suit the four hoops that flank every wall), although the walls are covered in hard rubber tiling. Small alterations to cater to the needs of occasionally out-of-control mutant powers. A set of punching bags, heavy and light, hang in one corner, surrounded by a sea of blue foam matting.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XSGym to watch here.]
[Exits : [M]ain [H]allway and [L]ocker [R]oom]
Autumn is in the gym, which compared to the previous week, is quite a different thing. After the onset of Easter weekend, the blond teen has been tremendously sullen and out of touch. As is usual, her sketchbook is with her and she stands, chewing on one of her pens. The few times she has been spotted since the previous Friday, she has been seen limping slightly and favoring her back, but no one has gotten a story out of her. By now, though, there is very little sign of that tenderness. After all, the bruises a confrontation left her with and her fresh tattoo have both had a week to heal. At this very moment, as she chews her pen, she is thwacking her favorite practice tool around the gym. Her old metal bucket she likes so much, which is dented and dirty, pings loudly each time she smacks it with her telekinesis. She keeps aiming and refocusing on smacking it every time it bounces away from her. Practice, practice.
Jean is sitting quietly on one of the benches near the doors, as much to have a good vantage point on Autumn and her bucket as to have a good line of sight on the door, and thus keep any stray students from getting a faceful o' bucket. Practice, practice, and Jean is studying her student as much as her student's progress, watching, perhaps, for those rumoured signs of soreness. "How do you feel about practicing with something a little different?" she calls over, baancing a clipboard on her knees.
"Sure," Autumn calls, turning to look over at Jean. The bucket is left sitting by itself, likely rather relieved that it is no longer being beaten by the psionic energies Autumn's working on. "What's up?" She heads over in Jean's direction. If she was limping before, she certainly isn't now.
"A volleyball," Jean suggests. "Same general volume, but very different mass and properties. It could be wonderfully chaotic, and a good step before trying a basketball." Content to propose nothing more novel than that for the moment, she sits back and peers over her clipboard at Autumn with a smile.
Autumn nods her head to that, tucking a resultantly loose lock of blonde hair back behind an ear. "Yeah, sure, no problem!" She doesn't seem much phased by that. Volleyballs and buckets aren't to dissimilar, after all. She wanders over to procure the suggest practice impliment, then holds it up on one hand and after a moment, it goes flying and bouncing randomly. "It doesn't feel any different really," Autumn says. "It's just a matter of aiming where I'm pushing."
"Exactly," praises Jean, and makes a little note on her clipboard of Autumn's Progress-type notes. "Now, see if you can stop it when it riccochets."
"Stop it?" This doesn't seem to work out nearly as easy. Autumn smacks the ball again, sending it toward a wall. When it bounces off, her attempt at stopping it telekinetically ends in it bouncing away every bit as hard and hitting off the wall again. She scowls over this. "That... that's not easy."
"Let's try for deflecting it to start, then," Jean swaps in easily, as the ball goes bounce-bounce-bouncing away. "Stopping is a challenge. I tend to think of it like making a box around what I'm working to stop that pushes in from all sides that it could possibly move away into."
Autumn makes a little face. Her little mind is working quite hard at this. Her entire concept of how the telekinesis works is a matter of 'push as hard as you can in one direction'. There is no subtlety or finesse in what she does. She shifts awkwardly where she stands and reaches back to scratch vaguely at her lower back. "Make a box around it," she repeats, a little quietly as she roams closer to the ball.
"As gently as you can... although we have a few replacement volleyballs," Jean assures. "Sooraya goes through them like nobody's business."
There is a good thump as she knocks the ball away from herself, then Autumn does this little "whoa" gesture as she tries to stop it. Her idea of stopping it though, is all about pushing. The ball hits the floor hard in mid-flight, and bounces up wildly. "Oops!" she calls, while careening backwards in case it hits a light or comes down on her head.
Jean remains sitting as the ball caroms around as a runaway volleyball is wont to do, bouncing off one of the caged light fixtures, riccocheting off one of the backboards and finally bouncing off the wall a few feet away from her head. She leans out of the way without looking up from her note-taking. After that, however, she looks up and stares fixedly at the ball, which soon stops its bouncing and hovers meekly back over to beside Autumn. "Good first try, and the ball survived it. Again?"
The next attempt dooms the ball. Autumn remembers to try to stop it from beneath too, once she knocks it away. Her brute-force approach though, means that the ball is pretty much crushed. It pops, loudly, and then drops limply to the floor. Autumn makes a face. "I killed it." For some reason, she rubs a hand at her chest. Lines of association leap in her head and suddenly, there is remorse. That must have hurt Jamie pretty bad.
"It's just a volleyball, Autumn," Jean is quick to reassure, momentarily puzzled at the wash of remorse for the slain sporting equipment. "You can't train a mutant without breaking a few eggs-- oh." One doesn't need to -pry- telepathically to be able to tell that the focus of the remorse is not wholly shaped like a volleyball. "Something else leave you guilty?" she wonders quietly.
Autumn looks over at Jean at the question, a sudden wince on her face. "No, I..." She is not tremendously good at lying. Especially when a huge knot of emotion comes rushing up at the realization that one might not -need- to pry, but that particular one is capable of it. Anger, shame, frustration, fear. This is not a good memory she is guilty over it. "I kind of hit a Jamie with it."
Jean's first response is to pat at a seat on the wooden gym bench beside her. Her second is to ask, perhaps predictably, "What happened?"
There is definite hesitation. She's scared of trouble. "I was going up into the attic, just... to go up." The 'to go smoke on the roof' reality of the statement is not hard, at all, to figure out. "And I ran into Jamie, he came up after me. And," she suddenly frowns. "It wasn't the normal Jamie. I talked to another one. This one was really," she pauses to try to find the right word that is not vulgar. She settles on, "Bad."
Not really, no. Not to another of the secretive brigade of rooftop smokers. But illicit cigarettes aren't Dr. Grey's prime area of concern at the moment, for she pats again at the bench and asks "Bad -how-?"
The second round of patting charms Autumn into sitting down. "Mean. Like, really mean. He was saying nasty things about me, and about the stuff that happened before I came here, stuff like that." That's the big well of shame. "I'm trying to be myself now, trying to let go of all the crap Jack put in my head. And Jamie made fun of me for being fake and trying too hard to rebel and crap."
"Jamie Madrox has the capability to be an asshole," states Dr. Grey with precise frankness. "And I've heard... well, nothing I can go on. But some of his duplicates have been out for a while, and I know they've gotten many divergent memories. Divergent attitudes may be going with it as well, for all I know. But what he said was enough for you to lash out at him?"
Autumn frowns at that, shaking her head. "I don't want him to get in trouble. I know it wasn't the /real/ Jamie that did it. But this one, when I tried to leave the attic, got even meaner and wouldn't let me." Frowning down into her lap, Autumn continues chewing at her pen. Her index and middle fingers on her right hand are wiggling back and forth, that weird nervous tic of hers showing badly.
"How wouldn't he let you?" Jean asks, questions keeping on coming, but with as gentle a tone as she can manage. "Did he physically stop you, at all?"
"He didn't like... hit me, but he kept blocking the stairs and wouldn't let me go. I got kind of freaked out," Autumn says, looking guilty and feeling even worse. "I was getting really, really upset 'cause of what he said about me and Jack. I told him I was gonna hit him if he didn't move, and he yelled at me to."
"Now that's interesting," muses Jean, catching her lower lip between her teeth and nibbling at it in worry and thoughtfulness both. "Well, I think since it's a case where there is both provocation -and- Jamie's said nothing of it to me I won't count this as a serious offence. But... I -will- need to assign you some extra practice sessions for the next month."
Autumn frowns over this. There is a huff of air out of her nose at the idea of /extra/ practice sessions. She slumps a little bit on the bench. At least, though, that's better than what would probably happen if Jean noticed her back. "I guess that's okay. I guess..."
"Anything else you want to confess to while we're here?" A dirty trick of a question from an attentive telepath, perhaps, but it's for the good of Autumn's soul. Really. Jean peers hopefully across at her student and offers a crooked smile to take any sting out of the rather direct words.
"No?" That simple word is accompanied by an inner dialogue that is a lot more guilty. << Oh shit, she knows, she knows. No, don't think about it. Think about something else. >> Then there is a sincere attempt at broadcasting the opening to Spongebob Squarepants. Except Spongebob has very little to do with tattoos, especially ones at the small of the back and wrapping around the hips.
"Really?" Jean bats back, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
"Nothing else happened at school!" Autumn is trying very hard to avoid this subject. Hitting Jamie Madrox is one thing, but she figures there is some bad trouble coming her way. She tries a smile, but it is awkward and uncomfortable.
"Autumn," says Jean, with a firm tip of her chin. "I'm not going to invade your mind looking for anything, but you should probably be aware that you... leak, when your emotions are high. Or when there's a spike of pain. Most people do, myself included."
Autumn frowns at this. She takes in a deep breath and then sets her jaw. "I'll tell you if you promise I won't get in bad trouble."
"Unless you killed someone or are actually Professor Xorn in yet another disguise, I think I can promise that," Jean assures, gravely indeed.
That draws a tiny chuckle out of Autumn. "I wanna prove that I'm my own person now. So I did something that no one can take away from me. Even if Jack came back, it's still mine. /I'm/ mine," she says, all of those tangled and temptestuous teenager emotions flaring up around that statement.
"Is this leading up to a tattoo?" Jean has a small and niggling suspicion, borne out of once being a teenaged identity crisis her own self. She cocks her head, somewhat expectantly.
"Yeah," Autumn says, with a little defensive shrug of her shoulders. She is bracing for impact, but at least reassuring herself that such a thing cannot be confiscated.
Not without the use of lasers, anyways. Jean seems startled for a moment at her suspicion being so calmly confirmed. "I didn't... you didn't... really... -where-?"
The startle bolsters Autumn. If Jean is caught off-guard, this means she isn't omniscient. She sits up a little straighter. "On my back," she says, pointing at the lower region there. Then she runs a hand forward, tracing out a path along her hip. "Like this."
Ah, the siren call of the tramp stamp. Jean lifts one hand and pinches at the bridge of her nose very gently, the clipboard being set aside. With equal care, she does not speak until all flip or snarky statements about individuality shared with thousands of others have been thought through and abandoned. What emerges is the question of "How has your aftercare of it been? And did you make sure the artist used sterile technique?"
"I'm taking good care of it, and yeah. It was done in a real shop with new needles and new ink pots and stuff," Autumn looks fairly confident at the moment, sitting up straight and talking decisively. "I researched a lot. This wasn't a rebelling teenager thing. It was something I really wanted to do for me."
"I believe you," Jean assures. "Although I'm not sure I have a high opinion of a shop that would allow themselves to be... bribed by an underaged girl?" she wonders, with a sidelong look. "Or did you use a fake ID?"
"It's uh, a little more complicated than that." Autumn shrugs her shoulders. "There's this big tattoo community online. Some shops just don't worry as much about paperwork." She shifts a little bit in her seat, the healing tattoo suddenly much itchier for being the subject of conversation.
"I... see," says Jean, but her wrath seems more directed at the tattoo industry's lax standards than the beneficiary of them before her. "Well, if you're sure you're happy with the design, I suppose there's not much I can really do besides see that it doesn't get infected or heal badly. Personally, I would have gone for piercings,"
"I designed it. It's mine," Autumn says. This is the key to it. "I have my art on me. That means I'm mine."
"I can see that," says Jean with a little more confidence to the words this time, although her eyes are still thoughtful as she studies Autumn. "And, of the various reasons out there to get a tattoo, I suppose that's one of the better ones." With that, and one last look, she nods towards the gym floor again. "So. Want to fetch a new volleyball and try again, then?"
There is a little flinch as Jean changes the subject. There is no yelling, no trouble, no frantic calling of parents? Autumn blinks her dark eyes a couple of times, but then she quickly scrambles up to her feet and runs for a volleyball. "Maybe I should try this with balloons instead, until I stop popping them?"
"They'll take a lot finer of a touch than a volleyball," Jean muses, lips pursing and being tapped with one finger. "It will up the difficulty of the exercise considerably in that regard, but on the other hand they're slower to move."
"Oh yeah. They would break a lot easier, but volleyballs cost more money." Autumn, you see, is a very good student and she is concerned with the school's budget. Certainly not deserving of any punishment.
Jean seems inclined to let Autumn dangle for just a little bit, and purses her lips thoughtfully. "True," she agrees. "Perhaps we can consider volleyballs a reward for good behavior. Or a Sunday treat."
"I don't like Sunday very much. Can it be a Saturday treat?" Autumn says, with a weird little look on her face. She is half kidding and half genuinely dislikes Sunday.
"Sure," bids Jean with a laugh. "But, in that case, since it's not Saturday, I'm going to dismiss class until we can find some balloons."
There is a little nod of her head and Autumn bounces the volleyball she collected away. One last little telekinetic whack. She doesn't seem to tire out very easily of doing that. She heads over to collect her sketchbook, then nods to the door. "I guess I'll go work on my homework stuff then, okay?"
"Off with you," Jean agrees, with a little wave of one hand. There's a sound of a shoe dropping as Autumn hits the doorway, though. "And while I'm letting this tattoo go because the horses are already out of the barn, if another one happens before your eighteenth birthday, you're getting the trouble that would come with that, -and- the trouble from this piled on top."
Her steps were going a good bit faster than was strictly needed to exit the gym, but she comes trailing to a stop when Jean lays down the law. Autumn nods her head slowly. "But if I do something like dye my hair or something, no trouble, right? You said I could do that."
"Anything you can legally do without your parents consent and without breaking school rules, you may," Jean assures, and then gives Autumn a little hand-wave to let her know she may scamper off.
And away goes the Autumn mouse. She scurries out of the gym, tattoo ink and all.
Wherein Jean realizes the futility of closing the barn doors after the tramp stamps have run out.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Monday, March 31, 2008, 8:35 PM
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=NYC= Clinton
Hell's Kitchen, because oh if that is not the preferred name for Clinton outside of the law offices, almost dragged itself up by the knuckles into respectability. But that was before the poor as piss housing and Hell's Kitchen's reputation for grit and shadow drew the attention of new gangs and new criminals -- and new refugees. Mutants have tried to disappear into the sagging tenements and alleys and been found dead on the streets. A Worthington safe house for mutants once stood here, but government backing and all, it could not outlast the violence. But the mutants are not only victims -- some of the bodies found on sidewalks or apartments are humans, and not all of them are masked gang members. While the mutant issue has lit the nation into a political hotbed, it has made Clinton dangerous for everyone. Proceed carefully.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias Clinton to watch here.]
[Exits : [Ch]elsea, [Mid]town, [M]ustard [S]eed [C]linic, [L]iving [C]olor [T]attoo, [P]aradise [F]ound Bar and Motel, and [P]aradise [V]illa]
[Players : Logan ]
When teenagers get bored, they tend towards lounging at malls, writing on walls, attempting to flirt with beings in line with their particular sexual inclination or occasionally breaking things. When their -teachers- get bored, what one gets is the following, if it's Dr. Grey and Professor Logan we're talking about. And they're supposed to be the -responsible- ones.
An early spring night has fallen on Hell's Kitchen, enough rain fallen to freshen the scents of marijuana, alcohol and freshly-reconstituted hobo pee without entirely melting away the grey grime that passes for snow in some of the shadows and makes the broken sidewalks slick and treacherous. Jean is walking apparently alone, fallen into the uneasy shoulder-checking scuttle of a walk that suits a woman in just a bit too nice of a trenchcoat for this part of town.
And there is more than reason enough not to. She is by no means alone as her distorted reflection on darkened slick cement is occasionally joined by the reflection of others, though the distortion is less of a stretch for some. These reflections, however, come in packs and lack the hesitation in Jean's posture. Some talk, some jeer, many curse, and at least one group lets off an energetic laugh that echoes through the night streets becoming a cackle on its own.
"G'off, G'off! Come on, keep it in your pants hon." The voice is female, the only one walking in the cluster that paces its way on a long path towards Jean, shrugging the trespassing hands and fingers of her would be suitor off before turning and walking away. The action receives a rather ungrateful "Bitch!" from the young man, but little else.
A flash of polished boot leather peeks out from beneath the swing of Jean's coat as she walks, hands in her pockets and shoulders hunched up to keep the night chill off her neck. She has a purse with her, caught between one elbow and her side, the strap crossways over the other shoulder as befits a New York City woman who's happened to take a very wrong turn. Clip-clop, clip-clop go her footfalls, taking herself closer still to the group. She adds in a few upwards eye-darts for good measure, never -quite- lingering long enough on the group to be accused of staring.
One of those glances, however, is met by a pair of eyes looking back. Soon after a shoulder is smacked and the jovial mumblings coming from the group still hushed with an unnatural but controlled stiffness. As the distance between them and Jean grow shorter and shorter, it is this pair of eyes that paces forward to play spokesman for the group. "Whats wrong honey, you a little lost?" He asks with a wave around. "Maybe we can help with a little direction."
Jean is somewhat older than this group, but she lets her eyes widen as they approach her, one hand drifting to rest carefully over the purse. "I just got a little turned around," she says, dancing from one foot to the other like a restive horse as she looks all around her. It's not entirely feigned -- even given what she's capable of, there's still significantly more of them. "Could you tell me which way to 8th Avenue? The street signs..." Are hit and miss.
"8th, huh? 8th... Hey, you know how get there from here?" The spokesman asks as he begins to pace to Jean's side. "Yeah, I think its down that way." Calls another as he begins a slow walk around the other side. "No, I'm pretty sure its around the corner a bit." And slowly the wolves begin to surround their prey, playful if sinister smiles cracking on each face. The circle complete, the spokesman smile's brightest. "Sorry, girl, looks like we can't make up our mind on that one. Maybe you should just stay here."
These young men aren't the only one on the hunt, though. Rough leather jacket shining from the ambient moist, and bootfalls that would find a better home further west, a more familiar face gives Jean a different kind of smile as it rounds the corner.
"I... think I'd really rather not," says Jean, with the wide-eyed alarm of a deer and the overly-socialized manners of a proper WASP. "I mean... really, I have people expecting me!" she insists, clutching the purse still more, and biting at her lower lip.
"Girl, we've been expecting you all day!" he laughs back. His hand reaches out palm open, but it isn't him that reaches to take the purse. From behind a pair of rough hands push forward to try for a nice hard shove against he shoulders. "C'mon, lets see what you got, and make it quick." The pretense of humor gone from both his face and voice.
Logan begins to pace forward, slow and deliberate.
"What I've got...?" Jean's words are given an upswing, but she doesn't quite manage to pull off a squeak. The hands shoving at her seem to be the kicker, for Jean... shoves back, eyes hardening and a pulse of telekinesis pushing out from her, light enough to be felt. "What I've got is absolutely -nothing- you want."
"The fuck?!" the spokesman barks when the pulse hits his skin and resonates through suddenly chilled blood. He gives a couple of quick nods to either side of her, though, blind male pride pushing down ebbing fear. "Put this bitch down." Metal scrapes against metal to Jean's right as a black painted iron rod slides across one of the men's wrist watch as he drops it from inside his sleeve. He takes a swing. Two other hands reach out to hold her still.
As the violence and threat to Jean escalate, a spark tickles the edge of Logan's eyes and calloused hands push fingers together into fists and slow steps pick up pace. He's done waiting and watching, these rabbits have sprung the trap.
The reaching hands find that there's an invisible wall between them and Jean, as she sensibly decides that the bait should wait for the hunter to come deal with what it's lured. Sensibly. Not at -all- with a glow to her eyes that's more than just a figure of speech and a decidedly fey little grin. The swung rod contacts the shield with a flare of orange at the contact point, and the grin blossoms all the more as she picks up on Logan's approach. "You really should look into another line of work."
"Shit! This bitch's a freak." The man with the rod exclaims, dropping it the moment power manifested flame interrupts his swing. He staggers back, as do all but two of his friends, but he is at least intent on continuing the escalation. Hand reaches into his jacket to grab a weapon a little smaller, but a lot deadlier. 9 mm with a mirror polish. He doesn't get the chance to level it at Jean though.
Clip clops becoming the staccato pace of a Wolverine charging full tilt, a primal grunt preludes a wild swing into the back of the man's skull, putting him down to the concrete. At the sight of the gun heading in Jean's direction it is a measured force of will that kept the claws in for the backhand. His own smile pushes to match Jean's as legs widen and his stance shifts for even more aggression.
"The term," Jean supplies, with the calmness both of a pedant offering correction and someone who is, more practically, expending a lot of mental energy in keeping herself shielded, "Is 'mutant'. A fact you wouldn't be dealing with if you hadn't been hoping to prey on the help-- oooh."
The lecturette, alas, will not be properly appreciated by the thug who's gotten his gun out. 9mm and owner both go flying with that backhand, the gun on a higher, farther trajectory than the man. The crack of metal-laced bone against a more conventional jaw is soon echoed by the wet thump of the body hitting a puddled, uneven ground. The liquid wail that follows soon after is good proof that the man is alive, if unlikely to be fighting back yet. Unlike, alas, his friends. The woman of the party seems to have scuttled, but that leaves two other men to draw their own weapons: a knife for one, and an old Police Special for the other. This gun-holder is more direct in his methods: he ignores the passive Jean and fires blindly at Logan.
Fortunately for Logan's experiences, the maneuver combines with the inherant lack of aim of the average handgun and one of the old brownstones of the neighbourhood gets a new chip in its stonework. "Fucker got Manny!" shouts one man to the other. "Show -you- the worst, mutie-lover."
Jean, thus with attention taken off of her, busies herself in crouching beside the aforementioned Manny, one hand checking his vitals and finding them good, before her other reaches into the folds of that stylish trench coat to pull out a zip tie rig. "Need any help?" she clips out.
Balance regained, he gives the thug in front of him a grin and a wink as he answers Jean with "Just don't let the other one run off." His boot twists into the slush bellow, pressure and poise finding traction where it is hard to grasp and he pushes froward towards the man with a gun, one hand reaching to grab his collar and pull him forward, the other balled in a fist intending to greet him in the gut.
The thugs may be out of Logan's weight class, but the one he's collared is as -street- thug as his fellows. He comes, but not without a low and snakey blow to Logan's groin, building on the momentum of being reeled in and using it to what effect he can. The gut blow is taken, but not lying down. The other is left to square off warily with Jean, the knife in hand as he approaches her and the downed and groaning Manny.
Jean does not have a knife. She, however, rises from the first man down with his zip ties now in place, and joins Thug #2 in some mutual wary circling, hands at the ready and mind even moreso.
A few dozen yards away, in the shadow of an alleyway, the lady accomplice is on the phone, waiting for the police with some half-baked notion of an unprovoked mutant attack on her mind.
As Logan takes the low blow, a bit of his edge dulls as eyes push hard together and the sharp pain pulses through his limbs, his chest, his nose, and his mind. "Y'know..." he whispers out not through intent, but necessity after that hit, "you're makin' it awful hard to play nice." A held breath later and he attempts to put his grip and his weight to use and push the man over onto the ground.
"Girl, you gonna pay for that." the knife wielding degenerate taunts giving 'Manny' an oddly concerned glance before he flicks his knife at Jean with a step forward, and then commits to a wide slash aimed at her eyes with another step.
"Oh, come off it, in this neighbourhood I'm probably old enough to be your mother," gripes the thirty seven year old Jean. The slash telegraphing itself to her opened mind a breath before it can transit from thought to deed, she backs herself out of the way of it, and then circles a little more, trying to slide in behind him.
Logan's thug vents an adrenaline-edged laugh and drives his elbows hard at Logan's gut as he tries to twist his way out of the hold, even as his knees begin to buckle at the sudden weight. "Fuck, man, you gonna talk or fight?"
As Logan feels his target begginning to fall, he answers his question with a couple of hard punches into his ribs as he tightens his grip and continues to push. Logan grunts harsh as the elbow connects full force, no effort extended to keep it from delivering, but this was more along the lines of the attacks he was expecting, so while the pain pulses through his skin, it doesn't have the same stunning effect as the first.
The man with the knife trades the blade from one hand to the other as he makes for another wild swing, this one even less controlled than the first. With creeping fear in his thoughts and gut, he isn't paying attention to the subtleties of footing and positioning and doesn't stop Jean from working her way around.
Jean has a wide range of options available to her, both normal and nearly-paranormal, when it comes to people attempting to stab her with knives. They're flicked through one by one with a rapid calculation before she finally has a perfect moment crystalize between mind's eye and the real-world. She acts, first lashing out with a low and sweeping leg to knock the merry knifist's feet out from under him and then following up with as much telekinetic pressure on his chest as she can manage without putting his ribs in danger. Her directive of "Tap -out-," may or may not be influenced by the first wail of police sirens in the background. The lady accomplice is apparently well-versed in the art of the cell phone, over in her alleyway. << I reeeeally don't feel like dealing with MA tonight. >> she suggests quietly.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch otherwise known as Logan and the other thug grappling, the hapless former gun-wielder has long since dropped it. His knees buckle as three hundred pounds of irritable Canadian mutant continue relentlessly to try and drop him, and down he goes in a sudden jerk and a hissed "Shiiiiiit."
Introduced to the now obvious fact that he is outmatched, the man on the ground from Jean's efforts gives a nervous wide eyed nod, and spreads his fingers to let the knife clatter to the ground bellow. "I'm out, I'm out." he insists panicked.
Logan however is rather enjoying his scuffle and Jean's mental suggestion is met with the slight displeasure of a child being told to put his toys away. There is a tightening of his fist around his target's collar as he almost makes a move to push the fight even further, but instead he lets go and simply delivers a disabling boot backed by adamantium kick to the downed man's gut. Provided it connects he shouldn't be too keen on getting back up for a few moments at least. << Alright, yeah, figure we are running out of favors as it is. Lets go. >>
Oh, he's out. It's not particularly hard to kick a freshly-downed man in the gut, and even less so when you're Logan. There's a retching noise with a liquid note to follow it, and the downed young man feels the need to share his dinner, mostly alcoholic, with the world. He does not seem inclined to pursue things.
<< And I'd rather not deal with writing a report about an unauthorized expedition, >> Jean agrees, eyeing the two who are down but not restrained and walking over to stand beside Logan with a gleam to her eyes and a hand sneaking over to collect his. "So," she wonders aloud. "Want to actually swing by the clinic now?"
There is a hint of a chuckle as Logan's grin turns sly and he steps over the unfortunate beneath him. "Sure, figured we might actually make it there some day." And as his hand accepts hers, he begins to lead in that direction.
Dr. Grey and Professor Logan set such good examples of what to do when things are too quiet.