Logs:Downtown Funk You Up

Downtown Funk You Up
Dramatis Personae Avi, Nevaeh, Tok
In Absentia Taylor	2024-05-20 "You can do it." (set during the Brood invasion.)
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. It's a glorious sunny day and, while later there will be bubble tea, just at the moment there's a boisterous drum circle in the park, accompanying a kind of rally crossed with an art demo. The park is being taken over by copious chalk murals ranging from beautifully intricate professional artists to eager kindergartners' scrawl. When the art is done maybe there will be marching, but at the moment, near the center of the park a very fiery young woman is giving a passionate speech about police violence together with information on how people can Stay Involved. Avi was listening to the speechifying earlier, but now he's been captured by the collaborative artwork. It's clear that he's really no artist himself, but all the same the colorful animals he's adding to a corner of the ongoing work are at least relatively identifiable as squids. Nevaeh is dancing to the beat of the drum circle in an unselfconsciously casual way. She's still reluctant to stray far from her companions, but the low-grade vigilant anxiety that usually grips her at protests seems to have bled away. At a slight lull in the drumming she scurries back over to Avi, where she'd left her backpack, tilting her head at the artwork in progress. "Those are good," she pronounces as she digs a half-drunk bottle of lemonade from her pack to sip. Tok is also most likely hands and knees on the ground adding to the chalk drawing. They are no artist either, but they do seem to be having fun adding to the art work with their scrawl. Right now they’re drawing a robot with laser beam eyes. Their long claws probably dig into the chalk a bit, but they’re still relatively careful with them. They look jittery, more so than normal, occasionally pulling at the fur on the end of their tail to release a nervous tension that seems to run through them occasionally. They tilt their head up at Nevaeh and grin, sharp teeth bright and on display, “Thanks!! This is fun! Never been to one of these things.” "S'fun, anyway. You wanna draw something, errybody's invited. Feels kinda good to make things a lil more cheerful, you know?" Avi is rocking back onto his heels, scrutinizing his clumsy drawings with satisfaction. He's started to reach for a nearby bucket of chalk but then stops, frowning, like he's heard something he can't quite identify. Just a moment later it becomes far more identifiable, a swell of nervous or breathless or excited or startled chatter that is rippling through the park. He's turning, looking back over his shoulder at -- "What the --" High above and considerably far northward of the park, a dark funnel is swirling above a bright beam that pierces the sky. Around it there are tiny specks -- from this distance they could be birds fleeing the strange tornado. Avi's head tilts in some confusion, and it's Nevaeh he's looking to as if she might have an answer. "We ain't getting a tornado here, are we?" Nevaeh is frowning, but not at the commotion in the sky. She seems to be frowning at her lemonade. "It's...bugs." Her voice is quiet and quizzical, her face scrunched up with disgust. "Big bugs. I think they're aliens." Only now does she look north, where everyone else is staring, but then she's scooping up her backpack. "We have to warn people. Everyone needs to get out of the open." She tugs urgently at Avi's arm. "Now!" Tok has popped up next to Avi and Nevaeh as soon as the vortex appeared. At Nevaeh’s words, their eyes widen, and their tail immediately began waving back and forth excitedly, “Aliens?!? ALIENS?!? NO WAY!! NOOO WAY!!!!! I cant believe this is happening!! This is REAL LIFE!!! REAL LIFE ALien….…s….” Tok’s voice trails off as something seems to click in their head, maybe it’s the urgency in Nevaeh’s voice, maybe it’s the whirling vortex over their heads that does it. Tok’s ears pin back against their head and they bare their teeth, the fur on their tail puffs to twice its size and a low growl rises in their throat. Despite their instinct to attempt to look threatening, they’re backing up a few steps, panicked, “Shit! Shit! Warn people!? Do we run?!” "It's what?" Avi is looking blankly at Nevaeh, and then squinting up at the distant -- okay, a number of them are growing rapidly less distant -- specks in the sky. "Honest-to-God aliens, you serious? This ain't some weird mutant thing? Ain't nobody gonna believe if we say --" But he's getting up on the fountain anyway, cupping his hands around his mouth to boom toward the nearest of the gathering's organizers: "-- Big storm coming in, people gotta get inside quick." He gestures towards the weird vortex. "You wanna tell em on your --" He mimes the megaphone, and the person is, with a wary look skywards, obliging. Below the storm there's now a veritable swarm of the black specks, but quite a few of them have branched away -- the scattered bugs coming this direction are getting bigger Real Fast. Nevaeh looked maybe slightly reassured when the adult organizer got on board with telling people to evacuate, but then she looks at the sky again, and her eyes go very very wide. Until she closes them again, tight. "We have to go," she says, firmly. Then points, without looking, to the south. "That way. Not the streets, the alleys." Tok’s eyes are darting everywhere, between Avi and the organizer and the vortex and Nevaeh and back around again. At Nevaeh’s direction though, Tok is immediately moving towards where she pointed without question. “C’mon c’mon! Let’s go!” They shout. "This way, y'all." Avi is evidently choosing to follow the younger girl's directions without question, too, hastening after Nevaeh. "We got to get away from --" He's still reluctant to say aliens but he's staring wide-eyed in that direction. The first of the verrrrry much alien looking ships -- it looks halfway to a bug itself where it slithers through the air and is swiftly overtaken by smaller craft bearing their own Huge and Insectoid riders -- is speeding into the park, and from the sound of the nearby scream of its first victim, these are Not Friendly Visitors. Small silver lining, the majority of people in the park are quickly deciding to listen to the directions to Evacuate, after all. Nevaeh does not look back. "Stay off the streets!" she's shouting to the others fleeing. Banging on the hoods of the cars on the gridlocked street as she passes. "Get out! Run!" She leads her schoolmates and anyone willing to follow two Black teenagers and a...furry person who's probably also a teenager unerringly to a tiny garden tucked beside an alley that bisects the block. She waves them over behind the cover of bushes, under the shade of a stout tree, and puts her finger to her lips without making the shushing noise that usually comes with that gesture. On the street outside, the 8-foot bugs are picking off stragglers in the park and on the streets around. One of them has landed only a few meters away, so close they can smell the fetid odor fanned toward them by its wings as it investigates a car that was abandoned, its stereo still blaring "-- 'cuz uptown funk gon' give it to you. Saturday night and we in the spot! Don't believe me, just watch, come on!" The alien's head pulls back started when the energetic bridge follows. Nevaeh mouths but does not voice "let's go", waving the others urgently down the narrow alleyway which is now blocked the view of other aliens by the bulk of the nearest one's body. Tok tries their best to gesture the people around them, “Go! Go!!” They’re sure to keep their eyes on Nevaeh and Avi, determined not to lose track of them. Their breathing is heavy, but they’re quick to silence it as they take cover behind the bushes, using their small size to an advantage for once and making themself as small as possible. They cover their mouth to suppress the nervous whine that nearly rises up at the sight of the 8 foot bugs, and their victims. They take a second, frozen for a moment, then diligently follow behind Nevaeh down the alleyway. Avi's eyes are wide, too. He's clapped a hand over his mouth, but then lowers it to slide his phone out of his pocket. He looks still more dismayed when hitting the panic button doesn't work, turning the screen with its no signal error toward Nevaeh to show. He does hasten after Nevaeh, quick and quiet -- at least until a teenager behind, following them from the park, stumbles and trips with a clang into a nearby dumpster. It's not much, in all the background hubbub, but it's enough to swiftly draw the attention of a pair of the bugs. Avi's stopped, pivoted quick, and though there's panic clear in his expression he's slamming out a rapid column of ice that knocks the bug from its hovercraft. The additional layer of ice that freezes up over it has clearly not actually stopped the bug for good, the creature thrashing hard enough to crackle at its temporary bonds, but it has slowed it, at least. That one. The angry companion who is hot on its tail, not so much. Nevaeh goes completely still, as if she were the one frozen and not the giant bug. She shakes it off quickly and helps the other teen up, tug, drag, pushing her back with the others, as if she thinks they have any better chance of surviving this encounter together. Then again, maybe she does, glancing aside at Tok with wide dark eyes. "You can do it," she whispers. Tok backs up a few steps, frantically, as the aliens approach. Their breathing has quickly turned to hyperventilation, pupils narrowed to white slits. They let out a yelp at the column of ice that erupts, and stares frozen at the rapidly approaching one. Tok's head jerks to Nevaeh at her words, something close to fear dawns in their eyes. They look physically nauseas, but after a beat, they nod. Then, they nod again, and maybe that one is for themself. Tok races forward without another word, gritting their teeth. Their growl grows louder and more animalistic as they face the alien head on. They stick out a hand towards it, "GIMME THAT!" Tok’s veins and eyes blaze white, and suddenly, their arms have grown significantly in length, no longer sporting fingers or hands at all, but long tentacles of the alien they’re facing. The alien in question, now sports cartoonishly regular arms, with Tok’s medium skin tone and claws to match. Tok grunts at the sudden weight of the tentacles, and they twitch as they frantically attempt to gain control of the foreign limbs. "C'mon C'mon! MOVE!" Tok’s veins and eyes flash again, and suddenly they’re wearing the aliens exoskeleton, the alien now with Tok’s skin. Flash again. They've stolen the stinger. A few more flashes, and Tok is looking much less like Tok and a whole lot more like the aliens. By the time the alien has closed the distance, Tok seems to give up on any sort of fine control out of the tentacle, and with a scream that barely sounds human anymore, swings one of the arms horizontally, hard into the alien, slamming it into the wall hard enough to crack the brick. They bring the arms up, and down, slamming the alien to the concrete. They do so again. And again. At first Avi looks almost relieved, when Tok starts to Level Up. By the time the transformation is finished, though, he's looking Very Worried, and when he inches closer to the Bug!Tok it's kind of wary. Hesitant. His voice is only a little shaky when he says, quiet: "-- bruh, you still you? We gotta get. Got a bunch of people we gotta get inside." He's inching back toward Nevaeh; his crust of ice is shoring itself up a little firmer around the still-struggling first alien and then spreading to enclose the second as well, under Tok's flailing limbs. He glances to the younger girl. "You got us a path?" "He's still him," Nevaeh says. "But he can't see too good now." She reaches hesitantly for Tok. Even with precognition she is more than a little intimidated by the transformation or the violence that saved their lives. "You trusted me to guide you before, you have to do it a little more, now." She takes Tok gingerly by the tentacle and leads them down the alley. "We can get in this storage space through that loading dock." She points at where the alley crosses another. "We'll be safe there." But there is fear in her eyes anyway when she looks up at Avi. "I -- I don't know for how long." Tok is breathing heavily, their eyes holding onto that constant white glow. Their movements are still frantic, clumsy, and they flinch when Avi approaches. They maybe seem like they're about to slam Avi into the wall, but stop when they hear his and Nevaeh's voices. Their eyes, blank white, squint at the two of them, "....Yeah. Yeah. It's me. It's me." They say, like they're reaffirming it to themself. Their voice is raw, and now clicks in a bug-like fashion. They manage a laugh, an exhausted dilerious one, despite it all, "I got tentacles dude." Once Nevaeh takes their tentacle, they immediately wrap it around her arm, the hold sometimes a little tight, scared to lose track of her. They allow her to guide them, whispering an exhausted "Thank you." Tok manages a grin, and it's the most recognizable part about them at the moment, "Lets do it. It's our best shot. If something comes, with the three of us, they won't even see what hit'em."