Logs:The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways.

The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways.
cn: violence, mass shooting, terrible violent sickness
Dramatis Personae DJ, Heather, Leo, Joshua, Mirror	2023-08-13 "Not a suggestion. An inevitability."
Location <NYC> Freaktown - Riverdale
Many of the fires around the neighborhood are burning low. Over one of the buildings, someone has rigged up a full glowing batsignal bright against the pitch-dark sky, and though Batman has not heeded this call the community continues enjoying the night beneath his beacon. In some places a few people have simply fallen asleep -- on the patio chairs, besides the firepits, no doubt strewn heavily around the guest houses, straight in the pools in a couple cases. Still others are going strong, passing around a bowl or passing around stories or just passing the time as they wait for the inevitable dawn. Joshua looks tired, when he turns back up -- but then, he always looks tired, droopy-faced and baggy-eyed and kind of slouched. He leans up with his back against the railing of the balcony he's landed on, digging knuckles into eyes that are, even now, just a little too hollow in a face just a little too gaunt. He's glancing only very briefly at the big French doors back into the opulent master bedroom adjacent, and just as quickly glancing away from the many flushed faces, the tangle of bare flesh within. He starts to straighten with a slow roll of shoulders, a slow roll of neck, unhurried as he starts to turn away from the glass doors. "Think everyone's home who's going home, tonight." Just beside him, that same face is turned outward; Joshua's own hollow eyes fixed blank on the blackness of the predawn sky and the roads in to Freaktown and decidedly not at that beacon. His borrowed clothes fit him now -- almost, just a little too baggy on his not-quite-filled-out frame. There's a haggardness to this borrowed expression that lightens ever-so-slightly when the real Joshua settles in beside them. It takes them a moment to push upright, eyes hitching brief on the distant-but-nearing gleam of motorcycle headlamps, several stark white crosses easy to make out even at this distant when the lights shine upon them. They only let out a small huff, clapping a hand firmly to Joshua's arm before he turns the rest of the way around. "Nah. Not everyone." And then the balcony is empty. Those distant lights are growing bigger, growing brighter. The Purifiers are not alone, out here, on their fat expensive factory-issued Harleys; they've picked up a crew of others, a few sporting the Friends' stylized eagle logo but more of them unidentifiable as anything but angry. The men on the bikes are fair bristling with weaponry both readily identifiable (guns, knives, tasers, grenades, a baseball bat rung heavily with razor wire) and not (at least two sport odd mechanical wristcuffs; one is holding what looks like a lightsaber handle but presumably is not.) They're descending en masse toward one of Freaktown's quieter entrances -- the shattering of a window and screaming -- panicked, at least, moreso than hurt -- from inside heralds their arrival more cleanly than anything else, and a number of terrified mutants in various states of (un)dress are fleeing the house just before a fiery boom comes from inside. For those who recognize the blur of motion, it is not quite as blurry as it normally would be. Heather wears a knee brace over her bright rainbow tights, her t-shirt equally bright, with the image of a bat with rainbow wings flying through the neon skyscape. She stops suddenly, her arm raised parallel to the ground and pointing towards the unwelcome guests with her baseball bat. Her reflective goggled gaze and hard expression do not waver when her wild hair whips about in the wind after the boom. The volume on the speaker mounted to her shoulder is turned up high so that it can cut through the noise of the engines. "You will leave." The other blur of motion here is exactly as blurry as it normally is. For now DJ is leaving Heather to confront the intruders;this blur is descending on the burning building. Steering the ones who have already fled back away from the arms of the weaponized greeting crew awaiting them just outside before he vanishes inside. The thick curls of smoke continue to rise from the broken window, but the crackling fireglow fades away shortly after. There's a second crash soon after the first, and then another, more flames sprouting in the damaged house. The crowd has quite clearly been waiting for the panicked evacuation -- there's gunfire beginning the moment the very first half-dressed mutant has appeared outside the house, and a number of the gathered men are rushing forward to attack. DJ's shepherding spares several people new bulletholes -- a couple others, already hit, are badly in need of his assistance to flee. The men nearest Heather aren't waiting for her recording to finish playing. On separate sides of the speedster two of them shoot -- not bullets here but very wide-flung nets of binding-sticky webglue, aimed not just to pin Heather down but to turn all the ground for quite some distance around her into a sludgy trap that certainly won't permanently halt movement but may go a long ways toward slowing it down. "You freaks," says one of them, body armor over his tee shirt and FoH eagle tattooed on his meaty bicep, "should've left a long fucking time ago." From a pouch at her hip, Heather flings a softball towards one of the trap shooters, into the web that is coming her way. She then zips forward, orthogonal to the paths of the glue shots, and slices through the air with her bat at one of the body armored men. A pre-recorded message plays next, "Not a suggestion. An inevitability," but because of the fact that she is not stopping in her moving and swinging anymore, there is a certain uncanny Dopplering that occurs. There's a split instance where DJ is back outside, the blurred path of his motion heading towards the aggressors, but the additional screams from inside yoyo him back away in an instant to check the house and its renewed conflagration. One of the many guns has vanished but so has he, once more leaving Heather with the gang. The man in body armor twists, not far enough or fast enough to dodge the blow that jerks him back against his bike. There are several more sprays of the very wide glue traps, and his compatriots seem fully unfussed by the fact they'll pin him there like a sitting duck too -- they are instead more focused on making sure that the coverage is wide enough there are no gaps around. Half of the group is breaking off still on their bikes, meanwhile -- two here, three there, three there, spreading in different directions to chuck a molotov cocktail through the next house window, or another grenade at the one across the way. The panic is spreading faster than the fires -- and likely this is the point moreso than the destruction because the men not spreading the booms have guns at the ready, clearly anticipating a flushing of game to hunt. With the incoming glue traps, Heather has no path but through, opting to zig zag through the pack of men rather than retreat through the substance that would inevitably slow her down. Still, she is able to apply agility commensurate with her speed, weaving through and applying attacks. The swing of her bat has full power applied behind it, her teeth now bared in a primal snarl, as it descends upon limbs with an intimidating whirring sound through the air. As the fires spread, as the panic spreads -- well, DJ unfortunately can't be everywhere at once, much though he likely wishes he could. He's trying hard -- vanishing one of the guns from one of the men just about to shoot it into the fleeing crowd, then immediately obligingly returning it into his partner's throwing arm. Scooping up a young woman who has already been shot, returning a moment later after probably, hopefully, she's been put somewhere safe. There is panic and chaos, there is a crowd fleeing deeper into Freaktown -- and somewhere in that rush, one man is drifting with an uncertain anxiety that gets him more buffeted by the torrent than swept along with it. Leo is watching the tide with a small widening of eyes, and then watching the bikes that veer off through the streets. He pauses -- sidesteps hastily to avoid getting trampled -- then turns, now moving a little more purposefully against the stampede. There are Friends scattering like bowling pins around Heather's assault -- one leaping aside, two others crumpling, one other sent flying when her bat makes contact. Still, there's a small contingent who remain; three of them have banded together while their compatriots collect themselves from the ground, ducked behind a barricade of what looks like tall black riot shields retrieved from their bikes. These three are taking turns at taking potshots at Freaktown's residents from behind this compact wall as the two remaining pairs on the bikes pull up to a brief stop, the better to continue firing indiscriminate into the crowd. The unpredictable whirl of Heather's motion continue unabated, but she prioritizes those who are actually firing guns at this event. She blurs over to one of the members of the shieldwall, slamming against the front of the riot shield with a thrust of her bat to send that particular Friend reeling back and, as she displaces them, swats her bat down against Center's forearm. As Leo passes by one pair of the bikers, something grabs hold inside them, twists. It's not slow and it's not subtle, a sudden wave of disruption that swiftly sees the contents of their digestive systems attempting a violent evacuation. Quick though his method may be it is absolutely no shield against flying bullets; by the time he's gotten closer to Heather and the crew at the front entrance, passing this wave on to the invaders here, he's kind of hunched over, clutching tight at an arm where a considerable amount of blood is leaking. "-- I missed two," he's telling Heather, oddly calm even with teeth clenched in pain. "They have bikes." The Friend sways back, though admittedly not very far, crouched in a fairly stable position on the ground and largely just crunched a little lower by the force of the shield on his shoulder. His partners have clearly been bracing for some similar attack; even as Heather is attacking, Center's shield simply pivots around the blow. Though he's hissing in pain from catching the crack, the bottom of his shield has swung up at her legs with far more speed than the man could have managed without the swing of the bat to tip it faster -- probably not in and of itself a particularly painful strike except for the strong electric charge the riot shields are carrying. Their attacks have tapered off after this, though; presumably they were planning a follow up before the shock could wear off but -- alas. Hunched below the protective ceiling of the electrified shields, the men are convulsing, an unpleasant splatter of sick trapped under the shields with them. Their companions both nearby and farther away on the bikes seem to have been taken with much the same fit; one person has actively swerved the bike into the curb and fallen off, one at least managed to Kind Of Park before being stricken. Some ways down the street the final pair maybe should be getting alarmed, but the noises of their beleaguered companions have not reached them over the screaming and continued gunfire. Between the shock and her recovering wounds, the bottom of the shield is enough to elicit a yipe from Heather along with the kind of slowdown that she cannot afford while so desperately outnumbered. The relief in her quick nods when Leo arrives is readily apparent, but her eyebrows knit as she gestures towards the bullet holes with a slight tilt of her head to indicate a question. She then holds up a finger to indicate to wait, and then zips back off to close the gap with the other two, fingers wrapped around a baseball that she hurls at one of them, a second close at the ready. Leo is tilting his head slowly to the side, frowning in some distaste at the men under the shields as they befoul themselves. He takes a small step back, careful not to muss his shoes in any of the mess. The feeling comes in rapid waves, now; a respite just long enough to almost-not-quite recover from the next bout. "I'm sure my friend told you," he sounds (almost) apologetic, "but you should go." The Purifier that Heather flings the ball at goes toppling off sideways, gun falling to the ground a moment before he does. The fair-weather friend who has been riding with him does not bother to stop, help him up, check if he is okay -- he's been starting to take aim at Heather but then, instead, simply guns his engine and zooms off past his afflicted companions. A few of those companions have started to try collecting themselves enough to retaliate -- but as recognition of Leo and understanding both spread they seem to be thinking much, much better of this idea. At least a few of the attackers are trying to clamber up onto their bikes, though their current condition makes starting them and driving off -- difficult. They're working on it. Progress is slow. Heather frowns tightly when the last one flees, but ultimately gives a resigned shrug before zipping back towards Leo. "You are bleeding," she states helpfully, "You should get medical attention." She sweeps a hand towards the Friends and then offers it to Leo. "I do not wish you to get an infection from this filth." The waves come slower, a little less violent, as the invaders start picking themselves back up -- not exactly tapering off but, at least, giving them room to successfully get themselves gone. It's only as they start to get back on their bikes and, hopefully, head out, that Leo lets himself waver, pale and swaying but steadying himself against the arm Heather offers. "A good call," he agrees with a wan smile. "I am not a doctor, but I hear there is one nearby."