ArchivedLogs:Grocery Run

Grocery Run
Dramatis Personae Flicker, Jax, Marrow, Steve
In Absentia	2015-11-22 "{I'd slog through worse for your cooking.}" (Part of Flu Season TP.)
Location <NYC> Lower East Side
Historically characterized by crime and immigrant families crammed into cramped tenement buildings, the Lower East Side is often identified with its working-class roots. Today, it plays host to many of New York's mutant poor, although even here they are still often forced into hiding. It's a bright and cold November afternoon, the wind sharp when it blows now and then but not the relentless cutting wind of true winter. Steve has the collar of his navy blue peacoat turned up against it, and wears neatly pressed khakis and polished brown oxfords. Across his back he wears a circular shield with a white star on a blue field at its center, surrounded with red and white concentric bands. Over his shoulders he carries heavily laden and brightly colored paisley nylon shopping bags, one purple and one green. "{Had any luck?}" There's a human-shaped blur shivering down from a roof nearby. Flicker's own backpack is nearly flat, looking somewhat empty. "{I think most of the grocery stores are empty from here to Jersey.}" Despite the crooked curl of smile on his face -- maaaybe he's exaggerating? -- there's a slump to his shoulder that suggests maybe, maybe, maybe he isn't. From inside a nearby store there's a flash of light. Then another. A curl of smoke rises out of the door when it opens; Jax spills out into the street, a little flushed, a little breathless. He's in plain blue jeans, a plain canvas jacket, black cap pulled down over his bald head, black eyepatch. "{... they don't have rice.}" Very rapid. There's a thumping coming from the door behind him. For most people the zombie uprising is a horrible horrible thing, but for a very select few it's pretty much the most fun they could possibly imagine. Of course Marrow is one such person. She's plated up in spiney, dirty bone armour over biker leathers, complete with a Hannibal Lector style face mask and is bristling with weapons. A pair of bone swords on her back, handaxe and a sawn-off double barreled shotgun on her belt and who knows how many knives everywhere else. She pretty much saunters down the street with some sort of briefcase in one hand and a huge meat-hook in the other. Even with the mask on she's still managing to smoke something strong smelling and rather 'medicinal' in nature. "{Good day,}" Steve greets Flicker in his awkward Spanish, nodding. "{I did not find much in stores, but church was giving out some--}" He draws up short at the flashes of light, dropping his weight lower. Relaxes when Jax comes out of the store and the zombies stay inside it, though his eyes search the photokinetic up and down all the same. "{Rice? Tag said he might be able to get some? He did not say how or where...}" This time it is apparently the masked and bone-plated warrior who causes him to trail off. "{If you wouldn't mind?}" he asks as he hands one of his bags to Flicker (it's heavy on cans) and readies his shield. But he's looking /past/ Marrow to a small cluster of human shapes down the street. They're not so much sauntering as shambling in this general direction. "{Hello, there,}" he's walking toward Marrow. "{Watch out behind you.}" "{But did they have --}" Flicker starts to ask. Stops. Looks towards the door at the thumping. "{Oh. We have plenty of /those/ already.}" He has less swagger in his step than Marrow does. No /surprise/ either, really, sort of accepting as he unslings a crowbar from across his back, hefting it in his left hand. The decorated prosthetic right arm reaches to take the bag of cans from Steve. "{Wow. Someones's -- prepared.}" He sounds /impressed/ as he looks over Marrow's getup. He's already shimmering out of easy sight, again. Turning once more into Kind Of A Blur as he ghosts past Marrow. Past the zombies, too. If only /just/ past, stopping just behind the group to bring the sharp end of the crowbar up towards the back of the skull of one of the trailing corpses. Jax is just kind of /gawking/ at Marrow as she saunters down the street. "... Oh my /God/ is that --" This is followed by a snarl, a twitch of shoulders, a rippling wave of bright-hot light rolling off him. A good portion of the wall of the store he just came out of is incinerated, crumbling into cinders. From the smoking rubble another cluster of bodies start to stumble-crawl their way out, grasping towards him. Marrow tilts her head at Steve. "Uhm. I no speak Spanish," she responds, glancing back at the zombies following her. "Except for {I want to buy a large bag of marijuana}." She gives Jax a greeting salute with the hand holding the dirty meat hook. A few of the bone spikes twist around to grip the briefcase handle and free up her other hand. Steve is winding up to throw the shield, but at Jax's exclamation he seems to lose his momentum. He recovers with a series of rapid blinks, but not quite in time lift the shield up against the fiery wave and the bits of burning store that rain down over him. He hisses through gritted teeth and whips around toward the exploding wall. Now he does throw the shield, which zips narrowly past Jax to embed itself in the head of the first zombie to make its way out. Flicker's breath catches, when Jax speaks. The bag of cans clatter loudly to the ground. When he blurs back into motion the rapidfire slam of his crowbar is less directed, lashing out not with purpose but with rage. First at a zombie skull, yes, but second at Marrow and then at the chest of one of the shambling bodies. "{Oh no --}" Jax shakes his head when the shrapnel rains down around Steve, but doesn't really have time to look particularly apologetic. He pivots on the heel of a boot, a blast of light shooting into the smoking hole in the side of the building as he scrambles back away from it. Another one of the zombies drops, though several more are pouring out, now, their rattling groans filling the air. While the bone spines secure the briefcase across her back Marrow sweeps the meat hook up to deflect the crowbar strike, sending the pointy end scraping off her pauldron. "Chill," she snaps, blowing a big cloud of smoke at Flicker. She spins with the motion and brings the hook low to snag a zombie ankle and haul it off it's feet. Her other hand draws a long dagger. "Or else." Steve draws his knife and vaults over the falling body of the zombie Jax just dropped to yank his shield from the one he did before that. Rising, he plunges his knife deep into the next zombie's eye socket and then slams it hard enough to knock its spasming body back and onto the one behind it, attempting to climb out. Another one, however, has already made it half-way over the rubble of the wall and reaches out with such eagerness for Steve that it tumbles forward and knocks him off-balance. Even as he falls, Steve is twisting around to slam the edge of his shield into the zombie. At least it gets him out of Jax's line of fire! And also affords him a view of the two mutants farther out in the street. And the zombies near /them/. "{Flicker! On your left!}" Flicker comes to a stop nearby Marrow. There's a contrite look on his face once he resolves into clarity rather than a blur. His breathing wheezes slightly at the smoke. He gives his head a small shake, equal parts apologetic and confused, but rather than /say/ anything he's already just dropping to a crouch to smash in the head of the zombie Marrow has just dropped. His crowbar whips out when Steve calls, knocking another zombie off its feet to topple to the ground alongside Marrow in place of the one he just finished off. The rubble is shifting under Steve as he falls, a pair of hands grasping outward, reaching up for him as a zombie pulls itself up out of the crumbled wall. The air around Jax is flickering, fierce and hot; this time it doesn't explode outward, at least, though. Just one small beam of light to pierce by Steve's shoulder, the arms that are grasping at him going still. "{... grocery shopping,}" Jax complains, "{should not be this much of a production.}" Marrow chuckles from behind the mask. She buries the hook in another zombie, just behind the collar bone, yanks it forward and buries the knife in it's forehead. She reaches back to draw the swords and ploughs into the mob, swords raising and falling. Each blow lops off an arm, leg or head. Steve /growls/ in frustration when the half-buried zombie grabs him. He can't really reach it, lying on his side with a dead zombie pinning down his legs. With a flash of light, the hands scrabbling at his back goes still. He wrenches himself free and rolls to his feet, stabbing the nearest zombie up through the bottom of its chin. He swings his shield at the next one out. Clips its head with a sickening crack, but does not do enough damage to drop it. "{I'd slog through worse for your cooking.}" The zombies keep moving -- albeit significantly crippled for Marrow's mangling. Still chomping, but far less /effectively/ with their missing limbs or decapitated (still champing) heads. Flicker shifts smoothly back into motion, following Marrow's hacking with his own swift blows. Crunch, crunch, crunch, his crowbar efficiently finishing off the zombies Marrow hobbles. He only settles back once their segment of street is quiet once more. "{... there had better be pie.}" His fingers tap against his mouth, brows lifting in rather unambiguous offer to Marrow -- Food? The crowbar gestures back down the street in the general direction of their home. Jax doesn't even look at the last zombie. The bolt of light that shoots out behind him singes neatly through its skull even though he's looking back down the street towards Marrow and Flicker. "Sure. Pie. All we got is pumpkin." Not a whole lot of fresh produce to be found, these days. His hand scrubs against his face, the glow around him brightening, then fading away. The smile he tosses back towards Steve is crooked. "{Let's hope you don't have to.}" Marrow wipes the swords clean on a zombie, then ducks down and begins going through pockets and checking still twitching limbs for watches and rings. "Can't," she replies, voice muffled. "On patrol." She pockets a few choice items and retrieves her other weapons. "You guys have fun." And with that she saunters off, blowing smoke rings and whistling a happy tune.