Logs:Your hands are shaking / Mine, too. Eyes wide, hearts pounding. / Fear, or bravery?

Your hands are shaking / Mine, too. Eyes wide, hearts pounding. / Fear, or bravery?
Hayes, Terrance. "New York Poem". 27-28.
Dramatis Personae Natsumi, Roscoe, Sriyani, Falcon-cameo	Roscoe's most memorable Birthday ever "We need to go we need to --"
Location <NYC> Daiso - Midtown
"Um what about this?" Sriyani's basket only has a sparse few items in it -- mostly in the snacks and candy department, though there is a pretty pair of travel chopsticks with a small cherry-blossom-decorated case and one colorful and very squishy, very cute bug-looking plushy that's in white and pastel pink and blue (probably an accident, the stripes are in the wrong order.) Their ambling path through the stores has been very much directed by the kids' various whims. Right now what they're holding up in (amused) (bright) offering is a miniature chess table -- far too small for playing on, it looks kind of doll-sized, much like a lot of the rest of the Tiny Cute Furniture on these particular shelves. "It'd be a great desk decoration. My treat," cheerfully magnanimous, as if the $2 is going to really put them out. Natsumi, dressed in her black and rainbow-striped dress with her favorite gold boots, is peering with great interest at the Tiny Furniture, her attention quite easily captured through this jaunt by the myriad Very Cute things on display. The only ones she's actually picked up for herself are two pairs of earrings -- one lemon, one pineapple, both with cheerful faces. "Oh but you need tiny chairs or else how will tiny Roscoe get people to play?" "Whaaat," Roscoe probably doesn't need to lean in closer to see tiny chess clearly, though he does anyway, eyes widening, "-- do the pieces move? I bet normal-sized Roscoe can play forcep chess." Is he actually normal-sized? This seems like a cope but he is the tallest of the three. His basket is also fairly sparse considering he's the Birthday Boy -- colorful pens, sticky notes with animal faces, a random bag of chewy lychee candy. He's wearing his denim ball cap backwards right now, though the cap's orientation has been changing sporadically all day, and a bright orange tee. "Shoot, I put the dino erasers back, they coulda played tiny chess," he says. "Oh we could get them." Sriyani is turning in almost a full circle to reorient themselves back towards stationery, but doesn't actually move once they've turned. They're glancing towards the front of the store -- not that they can see all that much past the shelves, even through the wide windows, mostly just a bit of the busy sidewalk outside. But the foot traffic there has definitely started to scramble, kind of a confused rush that's quite unlike the previous combination of lazy-afternoon-tourists and unnecessarily-purposeful-New-York hustling. Though their first instinct is to move a little closer in puzzlement, after this they're turning to Roscoe with brows lifting. "There's not shooting, is there, I didn't hear shooting?" "Shooting?" Natsumi's eyes go instantly wide, the chess set forgotten about, though she's still holding on to the tiny chair she selected for it. She's ducking out from behind their current shelving to get a better view of the window, but no sooner has she approached it than she is backing away again. "Uhm that's not -- that doesn't look like -- that can't be --" ends in an absolutely baffled, "Is this some kind of weird hoax?" Roscoe follows the others toward the storefront, not too concerned at first, swiveling his head around. "I don't see any -- what the!" As Natsumi is backing up, he is edging carefully around her to get a better angle, tilting his basket awkwardly in front of him to get it past a shelf of toys, eyes wide. It takes him a little moment to decide, "No, no no no not a hoax, those aren't costumes those are -- euuuugh." Whatever his thoughts on alien anatomy, he doesn't share, just reaches blindly for where he remembered Sriyani being -- "Sriyani, we need to go we need to --" halfway through this, his distant/disgusted stare is growing more horrified. "Oh God oh God I invited so many people." "Huh?" Sriyani is right where they've been, hand clasping quick at Roscoe's when he reaches for them. Maybe they've been tempted to get a better look, but at the others' panic even their curiosity is ebbing. "Go? Right, I can --" They're glancing around, and tugging at Roscoe as they wave Natsumi toward the nearest door, off at the side and marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. They've just reached for the handle when Roscoe's words catch up with them. "Oh no. Who's out here, should we --" CRASH. The outside panic is becoming Inside Panic in a hurry as several of the bugs smash through the store's front windows. Sriyani yanks the door open in front of them -- it's leading out, now, onto the much quieter main drag of Salem Center, just outside the diner. "Everyone this way!" On the door handle their grip is shaking, their eyes wide and terrified -- they are staring, fixated, where one of the bugs has just begun devouring a cashier, and then very deliberately look away. "Are there more coming can you get people this way. It's safe this way." Then, smaller, "Nahida and Nevaeh were coming, I don't know where they are." "We have to go we have to go --" Natsumi is very much agreeing with Roscoe's assessment, rushing back toward their friends. She screams at the first bugs crashing through the window and actively retches when they begin their attack. She's scrambling back away from the shattered glass and the horror-movie creatures, hand clapped over her mouth. Whether she's stifling a scream or more sick it's unclear. One of the bugs knocks into a shelf, toppling it in the path between Natsumi and escape, and it's only here that she pries her hand away from her mouth to indicate to the nearest adult: "-- There's an exit my friend has an exit." The First Adult is looking, himself, too panicked to comprehend, but when she tries a second they at least have the presence of mind to try to shepherd people toward The Way Out. "Nahida was with Quentin, um. Maybe they're." But as she's looking at the swift and flying monsters outside the shattered window, the sharp-clawed sharp-stingered ones inside, she does not actually manage to rustle up any optimism about this. At first Roscoe is just stumbling along after Sriyani, before he shakes his head and finds his bearings again, right on time for the aliens to crash in through the storefront -- he makes a sound sort of like a surprised goat, drops his basket with a loud clatter, drops Sriyani's hand too. When Adult One doesn't respond to Natsumi, Roscoe grabs for his hand to just tug him toward Sriyani's door, then darts toward the back of the store to fetch another cluster of terrified shoppers. As more of the Daiso-goers hurry past into Salem Center, Roscoe, too, looks just for a second out at the mayhem on the street before his eyes flick around the store again -- "Dallen's with Quentin too, I don't know where --" this chokes thick in his throat, his gaze stuttering on something on the far end of the store. "There's no-one left we have to go now," he says, scrambling back toward his classmates, feet skidding a little in discarded cellophane-wrapped miscellany. Sriyani's breathing is coming sharper and faster, and they look very much like they would like to simply fling themselves through the Door and slam it shut on this nightmare. They're moving to help up an elderly woman whose leg was half-caught under the shelving when it toppled, though, and then glancing around quick for the others. One of the fleeing shoppers does pull the door shut behind themselves -- possibly because of the chittering teeth-gnashing bug swooping rapidly towards the breakroom Salem Center, and before Sriyani can dart back that way the bug itself crashes into the wall, leaving the door smashed and swinging wildly on broken hinges. At least behind it there's a break room, again, and not the people who had been fleeing to safety. "Ohmygodohmygod." Sriyani (and their newly adopted Grandma) are backing away from the bug as it gets its bearings again. "I'msorry," gasps Sriyani, and then, "-- I can find another --" Maybe not in ths store, there are several bugs now prowling it. A considerable amount of the front wall is smashed, too, its glass door simply shards, but Sriyani is backing toward the ruined entrance. "Next door maybe?" they ask Roscoe, desperately. "How many of these things are there oh no." Natsumi is shoving a display table closer to the smashed-in window, clambering up so that she can -- well, almost go through it, she does turn before exiting so that she can offer a hand up to Sriyani's New Grandmother. The Whole Foods on one side of them is experiencing a similar amount of Chaos, she does not need X-Ray vision to see its also-shattered storefront and screaming people. The street is now a snarl of traffic and panic, though the buildings opposite look sturdy and bug-free enough; the church on the other side of their store huge and stone. She is kind of paralyzed with a current terror, though, just frozen indecisive on the sidewalk. Her eyes have tipped up, though she is rapidly regretting this choice. "-- a lot." "We can find a door," Roscoe is promising as he follows Natsumi and Granny out onto the sidewalk, and he isn't looking up when he adds, almost on top of Natsumi, "-- lots." He kicks through shattered glass on the pavement to pick up a twisted chunk of metal from the doorframe before he looks around. "The church? Can you use --" the nearest car is just parked half on the curb, abandoned with all its doors hanging open; Roscoe hurries over and slams one. "If they can't fit through the door, can they --" maybe he doesn't have an actual question to ask, he's just gesturing emphatically at nothing. There definitely are A Lot, that's no question, and more pouring out every moment. There's a figure swooping down from a nearby street, slamming one of the bugs out of the way with a large metal wing and taking out another with a blast from some unearthly-looking energy weapon. Busy rescuing one person from where a bug has trapped them in a nearby car, Falcon's back is turned to the nearby church as several bugs crash into its beautiful old stained-glass windows -- Roscoe, at least, can see the impending nightmare, quite a number of people huddled inside. "Subway's just that way," as Falcon sets his shaking rescuee upright on the sidewalk, turns to the kids, shoots down another bug that was about to swoop down at them, he's gesturing with a wing. His voice is calm despite the very obvious tension in his posture, the calculating turn of his head to size up -- distance to subway, more incoming bugs, terrified people fleeing this way down the street. "Safer'n here, I got you kids' back." Sriyani is making another quiet eep as they get outside. They're following Roscoe to the car, though, wide eyed and nodding furiously. "Yeah -- yeah. I -- I don't know what. Will happen if it breaks --" Not that they're thinking much about that, right now, just hastening closer. They startled -- first frightened and then relieved as this Assured Adult in full superhero getup swoops in. They don't follow, though -- just yank at the car door, looking at the people approaching. In a wildly improbably warping of space, the sedan's interior is now definitely an entire street -- probably the narrow New Haven lane is not familiar to the other two, but it's the first familiar thing Sriyani has reached for and it is, quite notably, entirely devoid of killer bugs. "This is quicker," they indicate the portal with one shaking hand, and then they're looking to the people down the street, unfortunately oblivious to the soon-to-be-doomed people trying to shelter in the adjacent church. "Get their backs, and we'll get them out." Roscoe is trying to shield his head with his free arm, cringing, as Falcon swoops down, but then he's shaking his head fervently, pointing across the street and saying in a little bit of a babble -- "The church, there's people in the church, they're stuck in there --" Falcon is staring into the door, goggles fixed a silent moment on where the inside of the Camry has become a quiet New England street. His mouth opens. He looks up at the bugs in the sky. Back down to the portal. The how that is quite clearly forming on his lips doesn't make it all the way out; he's nodding, brisk, at Roscoe's babbling. "Good looking out. Keep each other safe." He takes off into the air -- swooping quick a little past the church towards the fleeing mass of people running panicked away from oncoming bugs; though there's no way to hear him from this distance, his wing is definitely gesturing in the direction of the kids and their Gateway To Safety. And then he's barreling back, crashing through the church window himself. Inside he's taking on quite a few bugs; it's a very short while later that the church's doors open, the first people pouring out looking confused but relieved to see their Inexplicable Escape so near to hand as they bolt for the car. Roscoe is staring at the church, watching Falcon fight, even before the people that had been taking refuge inside start spilling out the doors, before -- 'CRUNCH' -- another alien drops heavily onto the hood of the car, kicking frantically up at the sky at first before it rolls back onto the street, onto its feet, its maw stretching open to reveal rows of knife-like teeth; one of its tentacled arms is snaking out toward the people now scattering away from the portal. Roscoe, caught in the corner between the car and the open car door, doesn't quite have enough maneuver room to bash at the tentacle with his doorframe bludgeon, but he tries anyway, though he is a second too late and just adds another dent to the hood of the car. A moment later the tentacle wrenches the club away, and Roscoe -- letting go of it a moment too late -- is yanked off his feet, tumbling over the car hood with a higher-pitched yelp than he will ever admit to; he lands hard on his back in front of the car, pulls his arms up at once to protect his face. Or maybe to cover his eyes, as the alien rears up over him. Natsumi has managed to unglue her eyes from the terror above, managed to unstick her frozen limbs. She's clumsy all the same as she stumbles toward the open door but then jerks back with a yelp. "No," is not actually particularly loud, or particularly intimidating; it's a bit of a strangled whimper as the bug knocks Roscoe back. She's lifting her hands -- as if to protect her own face, maybe, eyes wide and casting about fearfully like she doesn't quite want to look at what's about to happen. In all the chaos, the screaming, the shooting, possibly the heavy cracking crunching sounds are not that noticeable. It is noticeable, though, when a bronzed angel statue cracks itself off the pedestal it's been on at the church doors, THUMP-THUMPing on heavy metal feet towards the car. It slams its long trumpet up toward the bug, buried half in the gap in armor between its head and chest and knocking it back off the car. "Come on!" Natsumi squeaks, as the angel wields its (now kind of gooey) trumpet-club menacingly high. Can Sriyani's eyes get any wider? They're certainly trying. They're gesturing their Adopted Granny first and then the rest of the fleeing people toward their safe-harbor door, and though they look absolutely terrified when the angel cracks itself off the stone, they're reaching quick to grab for Roscoe, half-urging and half trying to drag him up off the ground and through the door. "C'mon c'mon I got you let's go." They are throwing a wide-eyed look at the angel as they go, though. "-- the Allreds are going to be so jealous." Natsumi keeps her wide-eyed post by as people scramble through the car door and out to safety. Her fists are clenched, her chest heaving. It takes a shudder and a wrench of her attention again before she goes through herself -- when she turns back around the angel is trudging back to its post, though, stone cracked and broken, it doesn't actually resume its previous pose. Just heaves itself up to sit here it once stood, shoulders a little wilter, its slime-covered trumpet now resting in its lap. Roscoe doesn't seem totally aware of how or why the alien is no longer looming over him -- for a moment he is just dead weight, not responding to Sriyani's urging until his brain seems to catch up to the present. He leaves bloody handprints on the car as he pulls himself up, staring with confusion over his shoulder at the angel statue as he lets himself be pulled around go the door, as he climbs extremely clumsily into the backseat, ending awkwardly in a seated position in the alley. Even from New Haven he is blinking around, like he can still see the alien attack through the walls, but his eyes are still dazed and maybe Natsumi cannot tell he is looking at her when he says, "Was that --" "As far as the Mormons know, it was an honest-to-God miracle, okay?" Sriyani's shaking has not stopped, but now they're laughing, quick and kind of hysterical. It takes a bit for this to calm, and -- maybe their hands haven't stopped shaking, but they're wringing them together hard to kind of obscure the tremor. "How bad are you hurt? We could --" They're keeping a wary eye on the door, though no aliens are currently trying to get through; when the last of the people stream through they close it. They're outside a cute little plant store, apparently open, though through the windows it seems empty except for its sleepy-eyed cashier who is too engrossed in their phone to notice the unexpected stream of people who've recently appeared outside the door. When Sriyani reaches for the door handle again, just barely starting to turn the handle though they don't pull it fully open -- the other side has transformed into New York once more, a different view of Midtown, a lot of panicked people and a fair number of bugs passing by to Roscoe's eyes. "You could let me know when it's safe," a beat, "-- ish. We could get a lot more people out." "I told you, it's a little creepy," Natsumi is saying apologetically. Her arms cross tight over her chest, and she's looking very pale and a little bit numb. It takes a bit for it to sink in, what Sriyani is suggesting, and then she looks between the other X-Kids with a very wan attempt at Bucking Up. "You find any more churches, maybe I'll get Jesus himself to play bouncer at your Doors." How badly is Roscoe hurt? He doesn't take very long to inspect the damage before he pulls onto his feet again, rubbing his face with one hand (not the bloody one, though it does streak his face with blacktop dust, smeary on his cheeks.) "Relatively chillin'," he says, and sucks in a deep breath before he nods and blows it out, puffing out his cheeks, looking from Sriyani to Natsumi. "We can get a lot more people out," he agrees faintly. "Tell you when."