ArchivedLogs:Move Along, Now

Move Along, Now
Dramatis Personae Anole, Kyle, Masque, Nox
In Absentia	2013-05-04 morlocknapping.
Location <NYC> Guerrilla Garden - Lower East Side
This abandoned lot isn't much to look at right now. Next door to a construction site and ringed by a tall, rusting chainlink fence, the rumble of large machinery is a constant disruption. Equally rusty signs have been affixed to the fence warning passersby to KEEP OUT, that this is PRIVATE PROPERTY. Weeds are as plentiful as chunks of broken concrete but there is surprisingly little garbage to be found and what does appear seems to disappear just as quickly. Here and there stacks of scavenged truck tires have been filled with dark soil and some enterprising soul has begun to create raised beds to the rear of the lot using splintery wood salvaged from packing crates. With the construction site active beside the guerilla garden, actual gardening has now become an exercise in battling dust and grit. The best time to make inroads against these invaders is at night, when the site has been shut down and passersby are few and far between. Coincidentally, this is also the best time for Nox to be gardening at all, which is why she has enlisted Anole and Masque to venture out with her this evening. The name of the game tonight is cleaning construction debris from the beds, checking on those seedlings that have shot up, watering and keeping an eye out for any hoodlum teenagers. To this end, Nox has deigned to adopt a more human form, the better to wield a garbage bag as she paces around the raised beds. The others may do as they will but /she/ is taking the construction mess as a personal affront. Anole is taking the whole expedition as a /fun/. He is bouncing between garbage-pickup and a very /desultory/ sort of weeding. Drop one thing in the bag, /dart/ over to examine the beds, stare at a maybe-weed maybe-shoot a long time to determine if it should be uprooted or not. Dart back, plus WEED for the garbage bag, too. Hopefully weed, anyway. He has brought a /book/ with him, on gardening, with helpful pictures to identify friendly vs. intrusive plants. He's consulting this on his weedhunting. "Do you know what it's going to be?" He asks this question abruptly, while distracted from /either/ of these tasks to, instead, climb up the fence to peek over it at the construction site. "When it's done, I mean. It's just a /pit/. It could be /anything/." Masque, meanwhile, is on watch duty. Someone's gotta be, and seeing as his thumbs have proven to be about as green as his mind has proven to appreciate beauty, he hasn't been spending a lot of time doing actual /gardening/ lately. Sure, he'll help out, but mostly? He's been wandering back and forth during these little trips. Tonight, however, he's been slacking. He doesn't quite look like he wants to be here, instead just sort of... lingering, hood down over half his face. Occasionally peering up as he slinks from one side of the garden to the other, only to have his attention snapped to the youngest Morlock present. "Anole. Down." A clear command, though not especially pressing. After all, what could possibly pose a real threat to them, here? Certainly not the people approaching at a casual saunter from the direction of the construction site adjacent. Not so much walking to the garden as ambling down the sidewalk. One man, burly-muscular, short-cropped blond hair, in jeans and dark suede jacket, has hands in his pockets. Another, slightly shorter, darker skin, darker hair, has a similar posture. They're chatting quietly, with themselves and with a third man at their side. It's quiet, the overheard snatches of conversation largely revolving around the sportsball game they have just watched. On the teevees. Probably at a bar. The third man glances and spots a darting movement in the lot. His eyes glance over, brown and dark, and he frowns. He elbows one of the other men, then continues walking the way he had been going. "Hey, I think there's someone over there," he murmurs, sotto voce. "Four o'clock. Green." Anole. In a more normal voice, he continues the conversation about sportsball, eyes glancing between the road in front of them and the lot. "I am not certain," Nox murmurs in answer to Anole, sparing a glance for the site. A brief glance, to be sure. "Anole, do as Masque says. You need to focus, dearheart. We are here for a task, yes?" That task being cleaning up. She lifts the garbage bag and turns, prepared to return to it--when those voices are heard and she freezes. Large black eyes turn from the men on the sidewalk to the fence where the boy was...but otherwise she remains immobile. This is, after all, a /guerilla/ garden and they are not supposed to be here. Better to now draw attention. "But, like," this 'but' doesn't come with argument because Anole is dropping down off the fence back to the ground, not climbing down but just letting go straight at the top of the fence, "what if it's something /awesome/ and it's right /here/ next to our garden. It could be like. A time machine. Or -- I guess it's kind of big for that but maybe a store that /sells/ time machines." He's returning to picking up garbage. Pluckpluckpluck. Screw immobile. Masque's head dips when he hears the new voices, immediately looking from Anole to Nox in an attempt to discern whether they were expecting visitors. Alert at once, hands lifting from his pockets to flex uncomfortably at his sides. He takes a step back, interrupting the last of the green mutant's words with a sharp whisper, "/Anole/." He's been nice to the kid lately, he really has, but the next command is hissed out in a poisonously hateful tone of voice. "Shut your fucking mouth." "Yeah, thought they might be here," Kyle's voice is also quiet-pitched, just to his companions. His hands stay in his pocket, his slouched amble continuing. Back in a normal tone of voice, his casual-gruff tone coated thick with Bronx harshness, "'mind me to avoid that dump Saturday nights, though, shit, fucking over/run/ with college brats now. /Used/ to be a good place to throw back a few but --" SHRUG. His companion is grunting an agreement. He slows as they near the fence, pulling from his pocket a sturdy heavy flashlight. It's bright -- /really/ bright, a brilliant spotlight-flash to illuminate the fenced-in lot. "Punk kids," is what he tells his companions, and to the people in the lot, "Oy. You know you're trespassing? Should move along, now." The third man pulls a second flashlight from his pocket, flicking it on with a press of his thumb. "Come on," he adds, gruffly, as he scans over the surface of the lot with the light. "This is no place to have a party. Go home, kids. Don't do this kind of stuff." he frowns, wrinkling his nose once. "Move along or we'll call the station and have you arrested for tresspassing." For once, Nox is in agreement with Masque. She might not have phrased it in the same fashion but attention is the last thing they want. She pivots and is about to go gliding over to the boy when the entire yard fills with light. Her pained cry is soft but undeniable as the high-powered beam locks her in human form and drives her to her knees, with her hands over her eyes. The warnings that follow fall on deaf ears. Anole is quiet! When Masque says to be he goes quiet as a mouse, leaning against the fence and fading-disappearing back to blend in with it. At least until those lights, and that cry from Nox, and then he squeaks softly and peels away, hurrying over to her side, suddenly green once more and wide-eyed concerned. He crouches, haf shielding her as best he can with his not-very-big frame. "Ohgosh no please you're -- we'll go just -- ohgosh Nox come on I can --" He's offering a hand, to her elbow, though mostly he's just looking /worried/. "Come on. Come on we're going now." "/Kids/." Masque exclaims in something squarely between a derisive scoff and a humourless laugh. It's only after this that his eyes slowly slide over to his partners in crime, head tilting upward to just sort of... survey the situation as his expression curls into a largely unconcerned and mostly just annoyed sneer. "Might be faster if you point. The lights. Somewhere else." This is grated out almost hesitantly, as he peers with one eye squinted slightly more than the other past those flashlights. Another step back is taken, this time less steady, less able to sustain the weight placed on it. Kyle takes a badge from his pocket, flashes it briefly at the rest of them. Official like. COP. Then the badge goes away. He moves to where the loosely chained-up gate of the fence is, tugging it open as wide as it can go. He does not wield a flashlight, just a lazy beckoning hand. Out, says the hand. "Jeez," he mutters, as Nox drops, "the shit --" He's /frowning/ at Nox. His companion waves the flashlight. "C'mon, people. Move it." "We're not going to ask you twice." One of the men says, pulling aside his jacket to reveal another badge - this one, a medallion in a golden yellow. "Move along, now, or we're going to haul you in for tresspassing." he says, firmly. As he pulled his jacket aside, the black butt of a pistol can be seen in a holster at his side. "Move it." Now is /not/ the time to be having a flashback but no one seems to have told Nox that. When Anole's hand is felt, she clutches at him while keeping her eyes shielded. She's muttering something about lights, something about cages, and doing a /terrible/ job of getting to her feet. Other voices approaching seem to penetrate, however, and though she continues to cling to the smaller boy, she begins to fight up to a standing position. Bent over, her hair disappearing in the glare of the flashlight and her grey skin blanching, she is obviously no human. "Anole...Anole, go." "I'm going," Anole assures her, and he's not letting /go/, holding on to Nox supportively to tentatively try and lead her towards the fence. "See? We're going. We're both -- we're all going." He's sticking close to Nox's side, trying to half-shield her from the bright flashlights as he gently presses at her elbow. Guiding. "It's okay," he says to Nox softly. "It's okay, we just have to go. It's not -- they're not -- they just want us to go, come on, we'll go home." Oh, for christ's sake. Whatever strength Anole lacks to help Nox up properly, Masque follows shortly afterwards to help by moving again, forwards this time, to grab her by the arm from behind. Not quite as gently - fingers curled tight enough to bruise a person. Another hand is pressed between her shoulderblades, and then he simply /pushes/ Nox and her attached friend toward the opening in the gate, his eyes flitting between the strangers on the other side as he limps behind them. Now, he stays quiet, though the lines on the rougher side of his face deepen with a lopsided scowl. Kyle stands back to let the others through the fence; his partner keeps the flashlight beam trained directly on the trio throughout, though he steps back, too, giving them plenty of space in the leaving. His eyes flick over Anole with a downward twitch of lips at the familiar green face, but this twitch is the only shift in his oddly casual demeanor as he takes another step back, glances to the third man, glances back to Anole. At his hip is not gun but taser, and his lax-casual doesn't actually /change/ at all as he drops his hand to his hip, draws it, aims it towards Masque, fires, in one smooth-quick shift of motion that is almost idle for its complete lack of hesitation or tension. Just. Casual. Here. Hi. Lookit that. Electricity. The detective draws his tazer at the same time as the other man, pointing it at Anole and firing. Two barbed wires spit out of the tazer, an ominous clicking sound splitting the air as high voltage arcs along the wires that connect it to the tazer. He, too, has no hesitation before firing on the green teenager - and he even has a smile on his face when he does it. It's good to love your work. Nox is not a helpful burden, lost as she is in whatever bright terrible place she's retreated to within her mind. The muttering continues, the cringing attempt to shield her eyes from the flashlights. In several places, those parts of her bare skin most exposed, she is blanching to white--as this happens, her muttering becomes more a whimper of pain. And when her guides are tased? Lost? Down to her knees she goes again, rocking a little. Utterly /useless/. "WhatohgoshIdidn't/do/anythingthis --" Anole clings tighter to Nox when the tasing begins, instinctively trying to draw her away but then there is a cheerful jolt of ohgods for him too! And his grip releases as he drops, twitchtwitch jerk on the floor, skin and clothes fluttering through a range of muddly greybrown city-colours before mottling in to fade against the concrete. Whimper. Quite a high amount of suspicion means Masque gets an extra half a second to respond to the taser being pulled on him - but even then, that's not a lot. All he manages to do in that time is breathe out a hiss in frustration as he lets go of Nox's arm and pulls back in order to try and duck away. "Fucking typickkk-kk--" Only to have a jolt of electricity hit him in the shoulder a moment later, his knees buckling and sending him landing on his side alongside Nox with a guttural, suppressed cry of pain, through gritted teeth and helpless little muscle spasms. "Well, shit." Kyle prods at Masque with a toe, first gently and then a heavier push at the spasming body, pushing him over onto his stomach. "Thought that'd be harder." Not that he's complaining. His partner hands him the flashlight, pulling out a pair of handcuffs -- he pulls the sleeves of his jacket down over his hands as he goes to put them on Masque. /Someone/ must have warned them not to touch this dude. Kyle keeps the light trained on Nox. "Wellp. Let's get 'em out of here." The other police officer leans down to shuck off the cartridge off of the front of his tazer, pocketing it and pointing the two bare probes at Anole. He approaches cautiously, reaching around to the back of him and takes a zipcuff out. He roughly tightens it around Anole's wrists, tazer pressed up against him. "Alright. Lead the way, boss." "Please no," Nox whimpers, "not the cages, not the lights." Yes, the shadow lady is broken. Heedless of the officers trussing up her companions, she bends forward close to the ground with her hands cradling her face. "Not the lights..." Anole twitches. Twitchtwitch jerk. "Mmngh," he says eloquently, through clenched teeth. He jerks when the handcuffs are put on him, but then is just -- lying. Cuffed. Getting them out of here? How about 'no'? Or rather, how about, "... nnnhhGGHHHRHGH...!" Once the spasms cease, movement returns to Masque in a big kind of way-- handcuffs already on, he KICKS and lurches violently to the side driven by equal parts disorientation and pure fury, aiming to crash any part of him into the nearest available pair of legs in order to try and either bowl them over or help him on his way up again. Not that he looks like he has any sort of clue what he'd do afterwards. This is pure, adrenaline-fueled cornered animal instinct, complete with incoherent growl. Kyle answers this as blandly casual as the attack hand been. He sidesteps away from the lurching, letting, admittedly, his partner at the brunch of angry failing. His heavy boot comes up solidly towards Masque's side. And then he's getting out a pair of keys, pressing them into his partner's hand. "Get the car. We're done." "Stay there, or this will get worse for you." The detective threatens Anole, tazer still pointed directly at him. He glances towards the man who is fetching the car, then levels his flashlight at Nox. The van does not take long to fetch, and the mutants are loaded into the back of it like cattle. A few minutes later, there is no sign that any of the police officers had even been there except for a few scuffs on the pavement.