ArchivedLogs:Proactive

Proactive
Dramatis Personae Dusk, Isra, Regan	2014-01-24 Changing teams.
Location <NYC> BoM Safehouse - Lower East Side
Tucked away off a little-used side street in the Lower East Side, sandwiched between a youth drop-in center and a taqueria, this narrow three-story townhouse has very little to catch the eye. Boarded-up windows, a door peeling its paint, shabby grubby brickface; from the outside it does not look like much. Inside someone has gone to great lengths to renovate the building into something more habitable. It isn't glamorous but it is comfortable, old furniture dragged in, the place generally swept clean. The first floor holds a large living room, a smaller dining room, a spacious kitchen, a half-bathroom. There are three bedrooms and a full bathroom on the second floor; the attic is just a large empty space crammed full of boxes with a window out to the large flat roof. The basement, much like the attic, consists of a lot of empty space. A bare concrete floor, no windows, occasional poles running up to the ceiling. A tiny half-bathroom down here, too. Not a whole lot else. It's a little earlier, this Friday, than Fight Club normally happens. The safehouse is never really /empty/, always a few strays in need of housing lingering around; today there's a girl upstairs curled up napping on the couch, another in the kitchen preparing a sandwich, the shower running upstairs. Down in the basement it's oddly /still/, a strange quiet in comparison the the sweat and smacking flesh-on-flesh sounds that fill it later in the night. Dusk is stretching his wings, a slow luxuriant roll of muscle that even after days out of prison he clearly savours. He's been down here for a while, talking -- quiet. Sometimes in words, sometimes in silent mental exchange; the tail end, really, of a conversation that's been ongoing in some form for a time now with Regan. He's told Isra to come early. There's a bottle of water in his hands -- he's absently /wringing/ at it, and though his expression is calm there's a nervousness belied by the motion, a little jittery, almost /shy/. Like he's bringing her to meet the /parents/. His wings flex behind him again. Fold back against his bare back. He's otherwise only in dark cargo pants, black sneakers -- bare feet /traditional/ for the fights but in winter kind of put /off/ till the last minute on the coooooold concrete floor. Streeeeetch of wings. Fold them again. Gooseflesh prickles along his chest and bare arms. His wing joints pop on their next slow roll. Regan is more dressed than Dusk, at least, if similarly dressed for /exercising/. Stretchy black pants paired with pink-and-black sneakers, a black Under Armour tank top with a pale blue fleece over top. Blonde hair pulled back out of the way into a looped-back ponytail. Her eyes flick down -- from Dusk's eyes to his restless wings. To his hands, with a very small twitch of his lips. "I've already seen her fight, you know," she remarks, mildly. Still bundled in a heavy gray cloak as she descends the stairs, Isra looks like a fantasy film villain whom most film-makers would probably relegate to CGI. Green eyes shine beneath the edge of the voluminous hood propped up by her horns. Black fingerless gloves disappear into her sleeves but expose the talons that tip her long fingers, and several layers of black cohesive bandage--and road salt--cover her feet. She sheds the cloak to reveal her massive wings wrapped neatly around her body over a lavender wrap dress made of some thick but slinky fabric. Her eyes find Dusk first, a rapid swish of her tail betraying her excitement to anyone familiar with her body language. "Good afternoon," this she addresses to both Dusk and Regan as she closes the distance to them. Her wings shudder and stretch to their full span before pulling back in to mantle loosely over her. Some measure of the cold outside still clings to her, palpable for anyone near enough to touch. "I left as early as I could." She cocks her head slightly. "Should I strip down to workout clothes?" Though she leaves it off, "already?" is heavily implied. The next stretch of Dusk's wings reaches out, touching a wingtip softly against Isra's in a gentle brush, fuzzy-soft-warm against leathery-cold. His fingers curl harder against his water bottle in a crinkle of thin plastic. He lifts it to take a quick swallow. "Nah," he answers Isra with a quick shake of his head. "Don't have to. Not yet. I'm just stubbornly anti-shirts even when it's goddamn freezing. We're just talking. No punching yet. Uh, Isra you've met Re --" He winces, scrunching his eyes shut tight. "Right, of course you've met Regan," he half-reprimands himself a little sheepishly. "I told her you were interested in. Fighting." There's a small curl of amusement at the corners of Regan's mouth at Dusk's pseudo-introduction. She lifts a hand, fingers running down softly against a long bone of his other wing, curling gently against its soft nap. "I think everyone who comes here is interested in fighting." Her hand drops from Dusk's wing to his fingers, stilling their /crunch/ against his water bottle. "But sometimes -- it requires a more direct tack. I saw you helping out, up in Harlem this fall." Isra raises her smooth brow ridges, whether at Dusk's awkward stumbling words or his fidgeting, it is hard to say. "I did what I could," she replies softly, the lower register of her voice predominating. "The experience opened my eyes, though. Before I fought because I wanted to be competent in self-defense." Her wing presses back against Dusk's, and a faint shiver runs through her as if she had not realized how cold she was without the contrast of his warmth. "Now I know that is not enough." Green eyes fix on Regan, steady and unblinking. "I want more." "S'always more." Dusk's wing settles more fully against Isra's, his other pressing up against Regan's touch but then wrapping in against his back. His hands calm in their fidgeting. "And it used to be -- I mean, with Jax and my team there, we've been fighting this shit with the labs forever -- in secret, you know? And that's one kind of fight, and that's /important/. That was always important. But the world lately, fuck. They're not even /trying/ to hide it anymore, you know? The cops sticking people in cages and shooting us in the streets and Malthus driving tanks through churches and --" He shakes his head sharply. "They've been killing us a while now. But we've been fighting /back/ a while now, too." "Some people are heroes," Regan allows with a small twinge of what might be amusement, head tipping towards Dusk when he mentions the labs. But her hand tips up and out when he mentions Malthus. "And other times you just do what needs to be done. My people fall more in that second camp. We deal with threats -- proactively. Whether it's keeping the streets safe at night for children like the ones who come to train here or," her eyes lower, her smile /thinning/ noticeably, "keeping the streets safe from men such as Captain Rogers." Isra's ears flatten back against her skull at Dusk's litany of violence. Her tail sways, slow and rhythmic. "I am not hero material, but I can, and will, fight to protect our own." She has gone inhumanly still, like a meticulously dressed gargoyle statue. "From neighborhood watch to targeted risk management--just how proactive do you get?" A pause. "Or expect to get?" "We're not exactly heroes, either." Dusk sounds a little wry. He looks over to Regan, eyes meeting hers a long silent moment. "Even if Jax really did have nothing to do with it," he finally says, "Malthus's death was no accident." "Just," Regan agrees simply, "Necessary." Her hands rub together, though this seems more for warmth than any other reason, in the chill of the basement. "Given the current atmosphere, I /expect/ more such steps may be necessary in future. There is no shortage of people who look at us as a plague to be exterminated but a rather severe shortage of people both capable of and willing to deal with them." "In that case, you could certainly use one more." Isra's wings flex as if restless and eager all on their own initiative. "I may not be a match for the police or federal agents, but I feel quite confident that I can handle jumped-up bullies." Something like a smile, just the barest glint of fangs, touches her lips for the first time since she walked in. "Besides, I specialize in learning." "Can always use one more." Dusk exhales an audible breath of relief at Isra's reply, his wing rubbing slow against hers again. Both wings stretch out in a wide flare, abruptly restless as well. "Besides, the police /are/ jumped-up bullies." His shoulders roll, crackle-popping as well before his wings fold back inwards. "Oh man. I don't think we ever stop learning." Regan's smile comes a little bit easier, a little bit /warmer/. She tips her head slightly; cocking it to one side to listen to footsteps as people start to gather upstairs. "I don't think anyone ever stops learning. I'm glad you'll be joining us, then. I'm sure Dusk will be only too happy to give you an introduction to how things work --" Her eyes flick over the motion of the others' wings, the restless flexing. "/After/ you get a change to beat on each other for a while. I think people are starting to gather. It may be time to strip down, now. I have feeling Dusk has been looking forward to this for weeks."