Logs:Little Queen

Little Queen
Dramatis Personae Emilia, Sera, Spencer
In Absentia	2024-05-20 "блять..." [Shit.]
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 beautiful sunny afternoon, and Spence doesn't seem at all put out to be walking with his feet on the pavement like a plebe. He doesn't look all that tired, either, after the exertions of providing rapid transport to just one person too many. He's wearing dark gray zip-off pants, and his protest shirt of the day is sunny yellow and reads "Coffee for my Family" above a drawing of a canned latte, and beneath it "It's got Force!" His kippah is printed with heart-shaped cappuccino art, and his sneakers are black with rainbow lightning bolts streaking the sides. "...and those folks weren't even throwing anything," he tells his companions indignantly. "But cops are cowards, as a general rule..." He trails off, frowning up at the sky to the north, which is darkening until it's suddenly pierced by a beam of light that illuminates a stream of tiny dark specks. "What...is that?" Sera is not so obviously dressed for activism in a pastel blue-purple-pink button-down, stonewashed overalls, and pink low-top sneakers. She also wasn't even throwing anything, though she might have accidentally encouraged some others present to sling coffee -- for their family, of course -- at cops. All the same, she's nodding very severely along with Spence's complaints. At the sudden question and the quiet unsettled murmuring from other pedestrians, she looks up. Her eyes narrow in momentarily confusion before her expression goes slack and her gaze unfocused. In the meantime, the distant shapes are getting less distant fast, fanning out over Manhattan. Soon they are near enough to make out into what look like giant bugs, some riding flying motorcycles and some flying on their own wings. Emilia is dressed as one would for a black bloc type protest, that is, all black, with a hooded sweatshirt and face covering. She decided to take that route, as some others had also chosen to do the same, though many preferred the 'loud and proud' approach. Emilia notices it too, slightly before Sera does. Any of the conversation they had been having leaves Emilia's mind, though she does listen to Spence readily, wanting to know more about protest tactics and the story he's been telling them. But that changes when the bugs come. Emilia's jaw clenches, and her gaze hardens, bringing her to a place she hasn't been in a very long time. Her claws extend, ruining her new boots, but she doesn't really care anyway. "Whatever they are..." Her head tilts slightly, focusing her gaze, finding her target. "I'm going to kill as many as I can. And maybe protect some people while I'm at it." It's mostly bravado. Truthfully, Emilia has no idea how to tackle this. But she isn't just going to stand by and let people die. She didn't when Freaktown was happening (but that was too little, too late), and she wasn't going to now either. Of course, she's immediately looking for any innocent people to protect, including fellow mutants who may be caught in the crossfire. Spence does not stare for long. There are distant screams already from blocks further north. "Everybody get to shelter!" he shouts, "Get inside!" To his companions. "I can't jump with you both we have to run!" He waves Emilia along urgently, and seeing Sera zone out he just grabs her wrist and tries to drag her. "C'mon!" The first of the bugs slam down on the pavement around them to much nearer screams of horror. And then screams of pain, as well. The nearest two are reaching for Sera and Spence scrambles to put himself in front of her. He flinches away and throws up an arm to shield his head. The moment one of its tentacles touches him, the bug's front half vanishes -- -- to reappear a few feet to the left. Both halves collapse to the pavement with a sickening plop. But the second bug is out of Spence's reach. "Emilia!" he cries, his voice high and wavering, "help!" Sera stumbles when Spence pulls on her arm, and very nearly falls. Maybe that's why she's making that weird noise? It's hard to hear over the sounds of buzzing wings and chittering bugs and screaming people. When Spence bisects the nearest one she howls, sending out waves of pain and terror and fury. She tries to yank her wrist from Spence's grasp, but her motions are jerky and ineffectual and when she can't she snaps at his upper arm, trying to bite him. Shit. She doesn't know if this is normal for Sera, doesn't know what to do. In an apocalypse movie, she'd just deal with Sera and move on. But that isn't how things work here, can't tell if this is standard procedure for the girl. But then Spence calls her name, and she has to do something. And so, she temporarily lets herself go. Go back to that time, before all of the therapy, all of the rehabilitation, all of the healing. Screaming and snarling as she carves up the alien out of Spence's reach, it brings her back. To the deer, to the bear. To all the things she hoped to never be again. But sometimes, you need a monster to deal with a bigger monster. And she's going to need to lean into something that doesn't care about fighting in a way that might kill some of these aliens. There's no negotiating, this is an invasion. And people she's come to care about and respect (if only through secondhand knowledge) are in danger. She's stood side by side with them through the protests in recent days, as many as these two have attended, at least, and allowing them to die isn't an option. "Sera, what the -- ow!" Spence was so distracted trying to sight them a safe path away from the giant bugs trying to bite them that he totally does not see it coming when Sera bites him. Hard enough to loosen his grip. Another pair of bugs land behind them, to either side of Sera now that she's pulled away from Spence. The creatures looming tall and terrifying over the teens -- even Emilia, already covered in the guts of their fallen broodmate. "Oh no oh no oh no," Spence is repeating as he tries to snag her back. Then he drops into French -- not the polished French of her mother, but the brusque Joual of her brothers, though he definitely picked up the absurdly bowdlerized sacres from her. "{What the heck are you doing? We need to run! They're going to frigging kill you!}" Sera shrieks again when Emilia slices up another of their assailants, spilling second-(third?)-hand pain and rage. She backs away from her classmates with a sharp hiss, right into -- no wait, right between the two bugs that have just landed behind her. They do not attack her. They don't immediately attack Spence and Emilia, either, reluctant to move from where they're standing...protectively? Over Sera? Her eyes narrow at Spence's exhortation in French. She shakes her head, and an oily, insatiable, nauseating hunger underlaid with fear and joy and a kind of desire that makes no sense to their bodies whatsoever washes over the others momentarily before she reels it back in. Her eyes refocus, she looks up to see the Brood warriors close enough to touch and, evidently deciding they are well past the point of censoring profanity, blurts out, "Tabernak!" This was absolutely ridiculous. The feelings take her by storm, feelings that she does not miss, at least when it comes to the fear. But the rest she doesn't understand. It confuses her even more as to why they do not attack, despite skewering their friend. "блять..." [Shit.] It made no sense. And she really didn't want to have to fight Sera. Luckily, she seems to reel... whatever the hell that was back in, and Emilia carves up the two of the aliens that are close enough, although she's being very careful not to hit Sera, so she isn't even sure if she kills them. But, she looks to Sera, muttering various swears in Ukrainian under her breath, though notably none of them involve her, just the situation. She then looks at Spence, as she isn't sure whether to drag Sera out of here, or tell her to follow along. She has no idea what Sera can do, and she'd really not want to find out. The bugs in their defensive stance don't really seem to expect Emilia's devastating effectiveness, one of them collapsing into a broken heap of carapace and innards while the other manages to hold itself together, if only barely, to lash out at her with its tentacles. The moment Emilia takes out the bug on the right Spence is darting in for Sera again. When the other one remains standing he reaches out to slap the severed head of its dead comrade and suddenly -- -- it materializes partly inside the still-attached head of the injured bug. It goes down like a puppet with its strings cut, though its tentacles still whip hard against Emilia. Spence grabs Sera's hand again, and though his face is pale and his expression terrified he seems very confident when he shepherds the other teenagers down an alleyway, little more than a narrow gap between the aging rowhouses with a quiet but sure "This way!" Sera muffles her shriek with both hands as Emilia slices up the bugs, the shockwave of echoed pain this time not nearly as intense as before. When Spence grabs her this time she does not resist, though it's a moment before she pulls herself together enough to break into a dead run. A wave of -- fear? aversion? -- passes through her companions, but it's strange and abstracted and does not add to the fear they're probably already experiencing in spades. Whether it's that or the cover of their narrow thoroughfare, no more alien invaders trouble them on their shortcut to Evolve's back door.