ArchivedLogs:Welcome Mat

Welcome Mat
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Jax, Kyinha, Shane, Tian-shin
In Absentia	2015-11-25 "{Zombies don't discriminate.}" (Part of Flu Season TP.)
Location <XS> Front Gate
Situated along the long sweep of Greymalkin Lane, offset from the quiet hamlet of Salem Center, the Xavier Institute is a prestigious boarding school for young minds. Set on more than forty acres of carefully cultivated land, the mansion is not visible from the road. What can be seen are the rolling hills, forested grounds, and the sparkling blue of the large clear lake. The drive is gated, a small brick enclosure housing the security guard on duty to ID and vet visitors to the school. It's a crisp afternoon -- rapidly fading to evening, the light dwindling but not quite gone as the sun dips behind the hills. Things at the school lately have been -- carrying on much as expected. A tense friction in the air as /some/ of the residents recover from their illness and some -- do not, a continued slow slow slow trickle of dead. Infrequent. Only a handful, but in a school this small even a handful hits hard. The biggest strain, though, has come from external pressures -- the struggle to continue /feeding/ the overcrowded school through the quarantine, to get supplies in with the nearby town completely overrun and the markets within quarantine borders only sparsely stocked, with their faculty stretched thin and overworked, with the threat of the masses of teeming dead lurking none-too-far from their gates. As the situation in Salem Center grows more desperate, the patrols of the grounds have been stepped up, X-Men called upon to deal with the far more frequent encroachment of zombies far out at the gates of the school. Remote enough, thankfully, that the thick massing /hoard/ in the town has not made its way here yet -- but still, daily, now, there are stragglers making their way to the grounds and needing to be taken care of before they can reach the school. At the moment a quartet of dead are shambling through the trees to one side of the drive, their aimless shuffle and lack of call suggesting they haven't quite yet figured out that this way is particularly desirable prey. But they're heading towards the mansion all the same. There's a blurry ripple through the trees. A shimmer of human-shaped silhouette ghosting quietly between the trunks, staying above the carpet of dried leaves to avoid crunching into them. Flicker -- still has plenty of aggression to spare, despite being long since through his course of medication; may as /well/ take it out on some zombies rather than anyone else, given that the school needs assistance with its defense. There's a crunch-/CRUNCH/, a spray of blood against the leaves, a thud as one of the four farthest out from the others drops. Dressed in her newly fitted uniform Tian-shin approaches along the driveway--not nearly so fast nor so silent as Flicker--cutting into the woods only when she sights the four zombies. Or three zombies. Drawing the long sword from the scabbard on her back, she starts jogging toward them. She takes out her first mark, however, long before she ever gets within melee range: the eyes of the zombie nearest to her burst from their orbits in a spray of gore and gray matter as the water in its brain spontaneously turns to hydrogen and oxygen. There's a quiet hum from overhead, a low droning that passes by as a hoverbike skims down over the trees. Shane sets his bike down only a few feet in /front/ of the creature, his eyes slightly wide and his lips peeled back to bare sharp teeth in a grimace. He's not uniformed, just come out from the city in black corduroys that fall down too-long over black hiking boots, a weatherbeaten denim jacket, "{/Guys/,}" the hum of the bike shuts itself off automatically as he jumps from its seat -- barely paying any notice to the zombies except to /shove/ the nearer one back with a hard thum of palm against its chest, ugh, get /away/, "{we have incoming.}" Jax is slower to get up from his perch on the bike behind Shane. He looks very pale, a little wobbly on his feet as he stands from the hovercycle. He's in dark jeans, dark jacket, dark boots, black eyepatch, red fleece cap covering his bald head. It's hard to say whether the greenish look on his face was already /there/ or comes as he watches the zombie-eyes explode, but his lips compress, head briefly turning aside. Only briefly; he doesn't have the luxury of spending /long/ in nausea, given how close Shane has put them down to the zombies; he is already drawing the knife at his hip. Pale-and-wobbly notwithstanding, this does not stop him from sending a hard kick to the chest of the one Shane has just shoved, capitalizing on its disrupted balance to send it the rest of the way to the ground, dropping to one knee after it to drive his knife hard through an eye socket. "{... with a capital --}" There's a hesitation here as he twists the knife. "{V.}" Kyinha pads through the trees, a humanoid patch of darkness defined by a faint halo of light and the crisp yellow piping on his X-jacket. His knife looks hand-made, 30 centimeters long with a very slight recurve and an intricately carved wooden hand, worn smooth from long use. He plunges it up under the chin of the last zombie, wrenching the blade until the body goes slack and then easing it down backward so he can more easily retrieve his knife. "{Have the hordes finally come to us, then?}" The blur resolves itself into Flicker, in cargo pants and boots and his black X-jacket. Crowbar in hand, knife at his hip, he comes to rest -- more or less -- by Tian-shin, falling into an easy jog beside her to meet up with Shane and Jax. "{Will we need backup?}" He's -- frowning at Jax. Assessing. "{How many?}" Tian-shin comes to a stop near the others, looking down the hill past the remains of the zombies they have just dispatched. She stretches out her senses to their limits, feeling for concentrations of human-size organic masses. Tian-shin's senses can feel quite a lot of human-shapes. Several dozen. Not far outside the gates, and closing in -- rather quickly, all things considered. Certainly faster than a shamble should allow for. Not much decomposition to be found. Jax shakes his head, not bothering to stand back up once his zombie has gone still. Not at first, anyway. He tugs his knife slowly back out of the skull it is buried in, wipes it against the leaves and grass. It takes a while longer for him to push back to his feet. "{No. I don't know. No. Ain't like that. It's -- it's /people/. Maybe sick. Maybe just -- just.}" His head shakes again as he struggles back to his feet. Even as he's answering this, footsteps can be heard out past the gates. /Trying/ to stay quiet, hushed voices, people moving as carefully as they can -- but with quite a /lot/ of people as they draw near they are audible all the same, crunching feet in leaves, conversation low and nervous. Shapes moving out past the gates -- the clang of metal as someone starts to climb over it. "{Refugees, then.}" Kyinha wipes his blade as reasonably clean as he get can it and returns it to a sheath at his hip. He starts moving again, toward the edge of the drive so that he can peer down along its length toward the gate. "{... right here in River City.}" Flicker murmurs this quietly after Jax clarifies, stretching out a hand to clasp Jax's. Help the other X-Man to his feet. He flits in a series of brief jumps after Kyinha towards the driveway, pausing in the middle of it to look to the gate, too. His cheeks suck inward, teeth gnawing at their insides. "{... how are we on food right now?}" "{Several dozen of them, that I can tell.}" Tian-shin follows Kyinha, but slowly, hanging back a little. "{We're not desperate, but we're not exactly rolling in literal dough, either.}" The roll of her shoulder might be a shrug or a stretch. "{Either way...someone should probably go and talk to them. Soon.}" "{Not desperate don't -- necessarily add up to can feed several dozen new mouths, though.}" There's a distinct /fret/ in Jax's tone. "{Not to mention where on earth we're gonna /put/...}" He trails off at that first clang, jogging after the others towards the drive. And then past them, slowing to a walk and stopping a fair distance from the gate to lift a hand in greeting. Not the one still holding his knife. "{Hello. Do you speak Spanish?}" Kyinha peers out from behind his tree, the arch of his eyebrow lost in the blackness of his skin save for the slight widening of one fiery eye. "{We supplement with hunting and fishing, but that's a lot of people.}" He moves quietly to another tree along the drive, then another, not quite staying paralell to Jax but keeping as near as he can while still staying reasonably out of sight. There's a young woman just dropping down to the ground, reaching up to help another woman over the gate. A small crowd is gathering outside -- nearly all armed, most with backpacks, duffel bags. A few suitcases, a couple coolers; one man has a bike with a trailer, one young boy has a babywrap strapped to his chest. The first woman shakes her head, backing up to press against the gate and reaching her hand to a baseball bat strapped to her backpack. The second woman, though, narrows her eyes on Jackson. But then nods. "{Some of us.}" Her voice is sharp. Wary. There's a shiver-blur of motion as Flicker flits up the drive, shimmering into place alongside Jax. "{How many of you are there?}" is /his/ first question, followed by a very direct: "{You know who we are, right?}" Tian-shin trots down the drive now, sword still naked in her hand. She reaches her two teammates after they have already begun addressing the crowd, and does not immediately add to Flicker's inquieries. Her expression is set, neutral and not unpleasant as she scans the gathered refugees. At least Jax would recognize this as her courtroom face. There's a disgruntled voice from behind the gate, gruff: "{We know.}" The woman is tense, one hand on a knife at her hilt. Her eyes dart to Jax, then to Flicker, a noticeable /shudder/ rippling through her as he blinks his way into place. "{Of course we know.}" The words come through her teeth. Behind her, more people are climbing over the gate, boosting each other up, helping each other over. The boy with the infant strapped to his chest is just /staring/ at Flicker. A girl beside him, thin, bloody dirty bandaging wrapped around her hands, speaks up: "{They said zombies won't eat the freaks.}" "{That's /not/ --}" The woman snaps sharply, still looking steadily at the adults. "{We /saw/ the fucking news. This place you got, it's.}" Her jaw clenches. "{Safe.}" Jax's shoulders tighten, his grip clenching harder on /his/ knife. "{Oh, if /that/ were true --}" There's a thin smile on his face, but his teeth are clenched for it. "{You come here looking for our help, you're /gonna/ have to get used to --}" His hand waves towards Flicker. "{And it's only safe here because /we/ protect it. From --}" This trails off, his smile pressing flat. His eye lingers on the boy carrying the infant. "{... how many?}" A softer echo of Flicker's question. Shane is slower to trail out of the trees after the others, hanging back -- not /much/ behind them, but slightly. Not /enough/ behind them to obscure his unmistakeably inhuman blue features, the pitch black eyes surveying the crowd by the gates. "{Protect it,}" he finishes Jax's statement unambiguously, voice clear and crisp, but calm, "{from people like you. Are we going to have to?}" "{Zombies don't discriminate,}" Kyinha is seen before he's heard, fading out of the woods to join Shane. "{They'll eat anyone. But /we/ won't bite.}" The fiery glow that lights his smile makes what would otherwise be a friendly expression look...maybe a little predatory. "{Unless you bite us first.}" The woman who has been speaking actually /draws/ her knife when Shane steps out of the trees. But lowers it to her side when he speaks, exhaling sharply. "{There's /nothing/ to go back to back there. The town's --}" "Theirs." Just one unhappy word of English from somewhere in the group. A lot of murmuring. Unsettled. Eyes shifting from Flicker and Jax to Kyinha and Shane. "{The fuck you even waiting for,}" with the press of people behind the gate it's hard to tell quite who says this, "{more of us than them.}" The woman's lips just press together. "{We're coming in. We don't have anywhere to go.}" Flicker's brows lift. It's hard to track his motion, just a rapid blurring shift that soon puts him on top of the gate -- shoving back /down/ whoever is next to try and climb it to topple back upon their fellows behind. "{You're asking or telling?}" His crowbar rests across one shoulder. Form oddly unstable, a strange sort of vibration to him where he /stays/ perched on top of the gate. "{We're not going to survive this by fighting each other.}" When Tian-shin speaks, her voice carries, crisp and clear. "{The dead are doing enough of a number on us without any help. The only way through this is cooperation. /That's/ how we've kept the school safe.}" The ripple of discontent grows louder when Flicker shoves one man down off the gate. Someone charges forward, scrambling up towards the gate -- someone else, though, perhaps having actually /processed/ just how fast the teleporter moved, yanks them back. The woman at the gateholds up her knife, silencing the people behind. "{We're,}" she speaks through gritted teeth, but doesn't, ultimately, actually manage to /quite/ answer Flicker. Instead she takes a deep breath. "{We can work. Help fight. Find food. Most --}" She flicks a look briefly to the children. "{Most of us can.}" "Flicker." There's a sharp note of warning in Jax's tone, his hand lifting to scrub against his face. He pulls in a slow breath, letting it out gradually. "{You'll /have/ to work if you want to eat. And if you start making trouble --}" He doesn't finish this sentence. He does, though, finally sheath his knife. Takes a slooow step back, finally gesturing the others to follow down the drive. Kyinha stopped smiling when the scuffling breaks out atop the gate. His easy stance tenses, one foot sliding back. But when the woman speaks again, he gives a barely perceptible nod. He pulls out his phone and walks toward the crowd rather than away--slowly, hands visible. Holds the phone up to a glossy black panel embedded in the masonry of the gate. A blue X inside a circle appears on the panel, and the gate unlocks. "{Come on in,}" he says, with less enthusiasm than is usual for him but still sounding pretty chipper considering the circumstances. "{Welcome to our home.}"