Logs:Gators of Unusual Size

Gators of Unusual Size
Part of the Leatherheads TP.
Dramatis Personae Blink, Kitty, rats & gators
In Absentia	2020-10-10 "This is like real life D&D."
Location <NYC> Lower East Side
It's not exactly the central hub of the squatting movement that it once was, but here and there are still some determined holdouts. This dingy brick building on 13th is not much to look at -- intended at one point to be a condo building, though several changes of hands later it remains unfinished and undeveloped. Not uninhabited, though, host for the past several months to an industrious group of mostly young families who have been working to get it into some kind of comfortable habitable order. Still more recently, it's also been host to an uncomfortable churn of rumors that feel almost at home here in the middle of Halloween season. The children's early complaints of monsters under the bed were perhaps ignorable -- less so when a pair of middle schoolers playing ball in the basement turned up terrified with large gashes on their legs. The occurrences have become frequent enough that word has been getting out to the rest of the community -- one family leaving after the most recent attacks, this time blamed on some kind of Violent Mutant who has taken up residence in their would-be home. At this exact moment it seems far from a nightmare in here. Bright, sunny; there's been some effort gone to decorate the place in cheerful bright colors. An autumn-toned wreath hangs on the door, and though the young woman currently sitting on the stoop has fresh bandaging around one arm, she seems in a good enough mood as she scrolls her phone. Kitty doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast. She has a name tag stuck to the front of her blue boyfriend style button down (Hi my name is KITTY, it reads), peaking through a long cardigan over grey leggings, looking around as if for a building number or sign as she walks down 13th. Her eyes fall eventually on the young woman with the bandaging, and she picks up speed, trying to remain casual as she pulls up to the stoop. "Oof," she says after a moment. "That doesn't look great." Walking beside Kitty, Blink is dressed plainly today by her standards, in a chunky purple sweater and black jeans, her magenta and black hair bound up in a herringbone braid. She lets Kitty do the talking, though she does smile politely when they engage the resident. The woman looks up with a startled blink soon followed by a swift smile. "Oh my god no it was awful --" She sounds oddly animated as she says this, sitting up straighter on the stoop, an eager wave in her uninjured arm. "I mean it's been like, so wild, you know? I thought people were playing some kind of Halloween prank but then bam!" Despite the clear wince this triggers, her hands clap together, "just out of nowhere some total monster type attacks me -- in my own house, like! You kind of think is it even worth staying here but my god have you looked at rent lately, I don't --" This animated stream of chatter is cut off very abruptly by the very distinct sound, somewhere further in the building, of a scream. The young woman's phone clatters from her hand to the stairs, her eyes wider and face paler as she scrambles to her feet. Kitty's eyes go wide for a second, the only sign that maybe she wasn't expecting such enthusiasm. She nods in agreement as the woman talks, only shifting her focus when the scream rends the air. A glance at Blink, her body tensing, and Kitty springs into action. "Stay here," she tells the woman, running up the stoop and opening the unlocked door. Blink follows Kitty up the steps and into the house, steps for a moment in the entryway to orient herself, then takes off at a run in the direction of the ruckus, her hands glowing faintly purple. Inside, the building is clean but sparsely furnished, many brightly colored scarves serving as wall hangings in places to cover up the amateur electrical work ongoing or serve as privacy screens for rooms that have yet to have proper doors installed. One of those makeshift curtains is leading down to the basement, where another scream has just sounded. Pounding feet hurtle up the stairs -- the coily-haired child that emerges nearly crashes straight into Blink before dodging around her. "I didn't do it!" they're insisting emphatically, just as something crashes down below. The basement itself -- clearly the source of the ruckus -- is kind of a wreck, a jumble of boxes and broken appliances piled into the back half; the front half cleared as a kind of makeshift basketball court, judging by the broken hoop attached to one wall. The bathroom nearest the stairway has clearly not been finished, too, a large hole in its wall and the exposed piping not actually hooked into anything. Somewhere near the back a slightly older teenager clutching a bag of hot Cheetos has taken up a post on top of an oven unit. "Shoo," they're trying, without much hope, and when that doesn't work, a more irritable, "Fuck off?" These words are directed toward what looks like a squirrel -- though immensely larger than any squirrel the city has likely seen before; this one as large as a toddler and trying gamely to make its way up onto the oven as well, despite the repeated kicks aimed at it from the youth sitting there. They look up a little desperately at the sound of approaching footsteps, and if they're confused to see Blink it doesn't register much past the general what the fuck expression they're already wearing. "Tell me you're an exterminator, there's -- Oh my god fine --" When they finally do give in and chuck the bag of Cheetos across the room, they look immediately regretful of doing it. A quiet chittering answers the crinkle of plastic. A skittering of many feet. The horde of rats that coalesce out of somewhere among the boxes are larger still, beady-eyed spaniel-sized things that are making all too quick work of the meagre offering. Kitty is right behind Blink, shucking her cardigan and tossing it on the ground on the main floor. She swerves around the children, coming to a stop next to Blink in the basement. "What the f-" she starts, then, glancing back at the kids, changes tact. "Yeah. exterminators. Go outside." After a moment, Kitty looks at Blink again. "You think this is the thing?" Her eyes don't leave the rats, but she crouches down, patting the ground for a spare piece of rebar or piping. Blink freezes in place when she sees the giant squirrel, such that Kitty almost runs into her coming down the stairs. She recovers, though, when the young person speaks, side-eyeing Kitty's reply but not arguing. Picking up an abandoned basketball, she throws it unerringly at the squirrel to scare it off and allow the teen to escape. "I've seen some pretty big rats but uh..." She sucks her teeth for a moment. "There has to either some weird science or mutant powers going on here." "Oh thank God. All I had left was some gum." The teenager is happy for a chance at escape, scrambling down from the oven and bolting past the scrabbling rodents toward the stairs. They aren't scrabbling for long. The Cheetos have vanished. Undaunted, the rats are turning their attention straightaway to the next nearest target, seemingly unafraid as they swarm hungrily toward Blink, scrambling over each other in their haste to try and take a first bite. Kitty finds a piece of stray PVC, spins it in her hand experimentally while the kids scramble out of the basement. "Both of those possibilities suck." The rats rush forward - Kitty reaches one hand out to Blink to phase her through the onslaught if she chooses, swings the incredibly solid pipe out to knock some rats away. Blink lets out a high-pitched "eep!" and grips Kitty's hand tight. She drops a portal right in the midst of the rats, not caring for the moment whether its opening slices the rodents or dumps them into the East River. "Hey, Kitty, maybe we should back up, to the bottom of those steps? So they can't flank us." Her head shakes incredulously. "This is like real life D&D." The sudden appearance of the portal draws a fresh wave of startled squeaking from the rats -- one of which was halfway up Blink's leg when it suddenly falls through the now-insubstantial limb -- and an additional round of confused scrambling. Several rats (and a couple halves-of-rats) fall through the portal; several more are trying, again, to lunge at the women, agitation only growing when their teeth bite onto nothing. All the scurrying, snapping, squeaking, almost masks the scraping sound coming from the ajar bathroom door just by the steps. The quiet creak as it swings just a little wider. Kitty grits her teeth, one solid arm and solid piece of pipe pushing some errant rats into the portal, a bead of sweat forming as she holds two states simultaneously. Gripping tight to Blink, she walks slowly backwards. "I suddenly like D&D less," she quips, looking over her shoulder to keep them from stepping into the stairs. "Can you drop one in Hank's lab, maybe?" Blink has gone a few shades paler as she backs up with Kitty. She closes the first portal and drops another between them and the scrambling rats. "Too far," she says, shaking her head, "I'd be lucky to even hit the right building." She whips around to stare at the bathroom door. "Oh God, what now? Kobolds?" Blink hasn't quite gotten the entire question out when the door slams open the rest of the way. The rats scatter, many of them straight into the new portal. There's a huge grey-green shape barreling out of the bathroom at remarkable speed, closing the distance between the door and the women with a sharp snap of enormous jaws. With the stairs right nearby there isn't, even, enough room for the monstrous gator to make it the whole way out of the room in this charge; just a quick lunge and a solid CHOMP towards the pipe-swinging arm. "I wouldn't mind Kobolds- oh fu-" Kitty doesn't even have time to swear before the thing is on her, teeth sinking into the solid flesh of her arm. Her eyes widen with shock, dropping Blink's hand and going completely solid for a moment, eyes wide and wet as she drops the pipe. It takes a moment before she is able to phase out of the creature's jaws - giving it plenty of time to attack her more. Blink actually shrieks this time. The moment Kitty has phased herself out of the gator's jaws, she drops a portal between them and the monster. She drags her injured teammate through it and out the other opening at the top of the stairs. She hangs onto Kitty to keep her from toppling back down the stairs, and turns to drop a portal directly through the megagator's head. "Ok, I'm gonna get you to Mendel, ok?" she tells Kitty breathlessly. "And we're gonna need reinforcements." The close distance and small space is, likely, a blessing as well. Though it meant the gator was upon them Very Fast, it also means that when it clamps its jaws and tries to start a roll, there's -- not really enough space to do this properly. It shifts a little more forward, snaps at Kitty's arm again -- by which point it's closing only on air. Somewhere beyond the curtain, down below, there's another slow scraping shift of claws and scaly skin over concrete. Then, only, quiet. The roll, marginal as it is compared to the size of the gator, is enough to cause Kitty to finally cry out in pain. She only goes intangible for a moment, the dispersal of her atoms bringing temporary relief from the pain, though the blood dripping out of the wound is all too solid when it hits the floor. Solid again she stumbles through the portal with Blink's help, clutching at her arm and holding it as best she can up to her chest. Kitty nods once, then twice, glancing back at the basement entrance with wide, tear-filled eyes. "Reinforcements," she repeats. "Fuck. Okay."