Firefox

[Aidan Fox]

The scream of a motorcycle fractured the night air, a tortured cry of fury and desperation to anyone there to hear it.

A late-model Harley, lean and muscular, rocketed down the rural New England highway far beyond the reach of municipal lights. Its rider, bent low over the handlebars, took his attention away from the blur of asphalt before him just long enough to check his mirrors for signs of pursuit.

And there they were – two of them, little more than shards of concentrated darkness against the already-black sky. One of them raised a banshee scream even louder than the motorcycle.

The rider swore, or would have if he’d had enough breath in his lungs. The needle on the speedometer was flirting with one-twenty, and the screaming shadows were still growing larger in his mirrors.

He braked hard into an oncoming curve, slipping down to sixty-five. His left knee hovered an inch above the pavement, and his drive wheel flung pebbles like bullets from the edge of the banked roadway. He had the barest sensation of a crosswind passing overhead, of a hand closing on the turbulent air at his back.

At the same time, he felt a searing in his soul as if he’d come within scant inches of hellfire.

The motorcycle muttered and growled like a living beast, and he fed it as much gas as he dared. The bike swung upright, nearly overbalanced, lurched ahead.

His head was bare except for a pair of tinted riding goggles, but he was wishing he’d thought to wear a helmet. Not to protect him in a crash – at these speeds, it would only be a bowl for so much jelly. But the wind was brutal, tornadic. It froze his fingers and tore at his bomber jacket, beat him from side to side and pelted his face with dust, leaves, and insects. But they didn’t feel it. The wind was on their side.

The road rose and twisted around a hillside, a sheer wall to the left, a sheer drop to the right. The guard rail hissed as it snaked by at the edge of his headlamp. He checked his mirrors – the banshees were gone.

And then a set of oncoming headlights flooded the road, and he found himself lit up like a beacon. He looked to his right, over the guardrail, and saw a shape unaccustomed to the light, all joints and claws and huge, unflapping wings, soaring parallel to him and rising above the level of the road. A nightmare face turned toward him and bellowed, and he smelled its sulfurous breath.

He jerked his bike left, hard, and darted through the headlight beams of the oncoming cinder truck to ride on the far left shoulder. The truck blasted its horn and roared between the motorcycle and the flying beast, making the creature wheel away and forcing the rider to hug the mossy hillside until it passed.

The rider squeezed the Harley for every horse it could give him up the hillside. It capped at 126, and then, when the road crested, it went airborne. He felt the impact of landing more heavily than he should have; his joints were tired and aching. This chase was exhausting him.

He squeezed the handbrake to kill most of his speed, then leaned hard and drifted into a bootleg turn. He stared at the hilltop he’d just jumped. In the distance heard another scream from the other side.

“Come on, you bastards,” the rider muttered, “let’s finish it!”

Then he twisted the accelerator and rocketed back up the hillside. When he reached the crest, he took one hand off the handlebars, and it began to glow with a searing blue light.

The banshee came soaring over the hilltop, saw him, and screeched in surprise. The glow from the rider’s hand bloomed into a wall of flame, which shaped itself into a colossal bird like a fiery eagle, lighting up the whole hillside in wash of incandescent blue.

The fire-eagle crashed into the monster and engulfed it. The creature wailed piercingly and crashed to the pavement below, smoldering.

One down. One more to go.

He raced down the winding hillside road again, casting around frantically for the other creature. It wasn’t until he looked straight up that he saw the corner of a wing eclipsing the moon.

The monster was riding the top of the rocky hillside, matching his speed effortlessly. It surged on ahead of him and cracked its long, whiplike against the top of the cliff.

Loose rocks scattered from the hillside over the road – pebbles at first, then stones the size of fists, easily big enough to jar his wheels off the road and send him careening into the cliff face or over the guard rail to his left. And then the monster snapped its tail again, and he found himself dodging boulders as big around as his chest.

He swerved crazily over the road, trying to brake without risking a fatal skid and wipeout, when the banshee peeled away from the cliff top, somersaulted in mid-air, and dove straight at him.

The rider swore again and tried to pull another bootleg, but his bike overbalanced and slid down the rocky pavement on its side – he barely managed to pull his leg out from underneath to keep it from being ground into the asphalt. The metal chassis sent up white sparks against the pavement and began spinning out of control. The guardrail loomed in front of him, and the bike struck it with enough force to fling him up and over the edge…

The banshee descended to find a half-acre patch of trees down the hillside burning fiercely. It perched on the guardrail above the mangled remains of the bike and stared curiously at the isolated inferno.

Something rose out of the middle of the flames – it was human-shaped, but it was made of blinding blue fire, and it wore a leather jacket and jeans that were curiously unscathed. The fire-being stared up at the banshee, which realized too late what it was seeing.

The rider raised his fiery hands, and the flames around him stopped burning the trees and coalesced into two massive pillars of fire. The monster had leapt up off the guardrail and was trying to flee to safety when the fiery pillars crashed together on top of it and pinned it against the cliff side.

The banshee’s scream was drowned in the roar of the flames and the squeal of vitrifying rock. The foliage all around the rider curled up and crumbled in the volcanic heat until the fuel was gone and the pillars of fire had expended their wrath. The cliff side, once an uneven conglomeration of sandstone and loose granite, was now as smooth as glass, and at its center was a smoking, vaguely bat-shaped silhouette in charcoal.

The rider, once more flesh and bone, looked up wearily at his handiwork, and felt fatigue pressing down on him like a millstone. As the world turned sideways and he crumpled against the hillside, he wondered if there was a chance in hell he could salvage his bike.

[Banner Laverick]

"Heeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooo ooo down thaaaaaaaaaaaaaar?"

From the top of the hill came a voice, decidely female and apparently oblivious to the recent goings-on. One short float and a pair of sneakered feet showed up in his field of vision, a shadow blocking out the sun.

Banner Laverick was enjoying her summer - chilling out with Felix, semi-moping in the sort of empty Cullens' Institute, flying around during the days when she wasn't training with Mr Rhee. She'd noticed the skid-marks, and extensive fire damage...without the rest of the forest burning down to the ground. She raised a brow at him - dressed in street clothes with her red hair pulled back in a low ponytail, she'd look like any normal teen. You know, except for the flying part.

"Are you ok?"

[Aidan Fox]

If the pounding in his head was any indication, the rockslide hadn't missed him after all. He felt like the whole mountainside had come down squarely on his temples.

Gingerly he tried to lift his head out of the dirt and decaying leaves. But he hadn't remembered he was on a steep hillside, and he quickly overbalanced and rolled down the slope another few yards before slamming to a halt against a scalded tree trunk. White ash sprinkled down onto his leather jacket.

Groaning, he found his equilibrium and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. He looked like he was going to be sick.

[Banner Laverick]

She flitted away, making a face as he slid further down the hill right underneath her. He looked like he was going to yammy. Gross.

"Hey, no puking." Banner hovered above him, trying not to look completely grossed out by the potential spewage. She smiled at him with semi-forced sympathy. After all, he had just been in a firey crash. Without any real damage done to his clothing or himself (from the fire at least). "Come on, breathe through your nose and out your mouth."

[Aidan Fox]

He tried to crawl away from the tree trunk, but his stumbled on his hands and had to pick himself up again. He made an awful face, and he nearly lost it right there all over the dirt and rotten leaves covering the hillside, but he just coughed and, very slowly, craned his neck to get a look at his good Samaritan.

There was soot all over his goggles. He tried unsuccessfully to wipe it away, then gave up and pulled the goggles off his face. Then he squinted against the sunlight up at Banner.

"Hey," he rasped.

[Banner Laverick]

"Are you ok?"

She was sounding like a broken record. Settling onto the ground, she folded her arms across her chest.

"What the heck happened here? Haven't you ever heard of Smokey the Bear?"

[Aidan Fox]

The rider carefully rolled over onto his backside so he was facing down the hill. He carefully probed his chest for broken ribs. He winced as he found one or two that had bruised.

"I'll be all right in a minute," he said, and he coughed again. Then he looked back over his shoulder at the puckering guardrail about thirty feet uphill.

"Did you see my bike? Is it okay?"

[Banner Laverick]

"Uh, no? It's totally smashed in and burnt up. It is definitely not okay. You being okay matters way way more than a stupid bike."

She nearly rolled her eyes. Only a boy would be more concerned with a toy then with, say, broken bones and possible internal bleeding. She found herself thinking how glad she was that Felix hadn't fallen into that mind-set. Yet.

"See? Broken!" Banner moved towards the mangled wreckage, giving it a kick. It skittered about a foot in the dirt, settling into the dead leaves and ash while sending up a half-hearted cloud of dust. "It's not going anywhere."

[Aidan Fox]

When she moved toward his bike, he grabbed a low-hanging branch for a better look - he felt the kick as if it had been aimed at his gut.

"Hey, hey, don't do that!"

It took a moment for him to register that she'd just shifted the whole Harley, or what was left of it, with an idle kick. He stared at her in disbelief. Then he slowly started to trudge his way up the hill.

He gripped the guard rail and hauled himself up over the berm to the edge of the road, his ribs twinging him vindictively.

"Oh, no..."

It was like looking at a deer that had been hit by a semi and flung to the side of the road, side gashed open and legs sticking in every direction. The exhaust pipe was peeled away from the frame, which was in pieces, and the forks were completely twisted off their mounts, leaving the front wheel hanging by the brake lines. The road was littered with flecks of chrome and amber plastic from the turn signals. The foot pegs were probably a hundred feet back or so where he'd started his skid.

"Oh, no."

He sank to his knees next to the Harley and laid an unsteady hand on the fuel tank. He shook his head despairingly.

"The engine," he said. "I might be able to save the engine. But... Damn it! Son of a..."

He looked up at the black smear of something against the glassy cliff side above them.

[Banner Laverick]

"Don't get all pissy, that won't get anything fixed."

His back was to her as she once again floated up the hill, her sneakers crunching as she landed next to him. He hadn't said word one about her kicking a motorcycle, which was fine by her. He didn't seem to notice the flying either, being more concerned with the battered remains of his bike.

Banner followed his eyes up the black stain, squinting. "Did you do that?"

[Aidan Fox]

He glanced nervously at the girl - who, he noted for the first time, was cute and a red-head. But at the moment he was more concerned with explaining how a whole mountainside had turned from sedimentary to igneous rock overnight.

"Me?" he said, striking an appropriate chord of surprise. "I don't even think my fuel tank caught fire. There was a rockslide..." He pointed to the mess of rocks and pebbles still littering the highway. "...Went into a skid and got thrown over the guardrail. Then I completely blacked out."

He picked up a scrap of chrome and threw it onto the wreckage despondently. "Hey, where are we? I was on my way to Salem, and, well, guess I got lost."

[Banner Laverick]

"Sort of near Westchester? Like, a 30 minute flight away, if you're flying really fast. I'm not sure, I don't have a good grasp of the geography here yet."

Banner rocked on her tip-toes, shrugging. Rockslide...sure. Self-deluded mutants, yay? A grin curled the corners of her mouth as she knelt beside him.

"I don't think rock can magically change, or things can just catch on fire all on their own. A rockslide wouldn't have burnt the trees, and your bike didn't explode. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking. Must've been you."

[Aidan Fox]

He gave her a strained look. Then he shifted back onto his rear and laughed humorlessly.

"Ah, what the hell. Yeah, it was me. I was... well... I was under a bit of stress."

He looked up and down the road again.

"And, anyway, I can see the dent where you kicked my bike, thanks a lot for that, and you're talking about flying and I don't see a jump-jet nearby, so you're obviously a mutant, too."

He looked her up and down, really taking note of her for the first time. And that's when an odd look came over his face. He'd just realized he recognized her.

But the look disappeared as quickly as it'd come. "So. I'm Aidan." He thought about it and then held out grubby hand to shake.

[Banner Laverick]

"Obviously."

She took his hand, giving it a firm but not too overly strong shake.

"Banner."

She shifted, sitting down beside him. "Sorry for being so forward about the whole mutant thing, but I mean, come on. It's not like you could blame this all on Johnny Storm."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan gave up trying to figure out who Johnny Storm was when he realized things were complicated enough as they were.

"Banner, huh," he said, smiling self-consciously. "You don't meet many Banners. That's a good name, you oughta trademark that."

He rested his hands on his knees and took a good look around him. The sky was full of partly cloudy, but it was quickly growing hot and muggy. He unzipped his jacket and started shrugging it off his shoulders.

"It's not the mutant part that had me worried - I'm cool with that. I just don't feel like explaining to a couple cops how I changed the local landscape. It was... well, an accident. I guess I freaked out when I went over the guardrail."

Best to leave out that he was being pursued by demonic shadow creatures at the time. He wasn't ready for a long vacation in a padded room yet.

[Banner Laverick]

"Yeah, I guess I should. Fits with my super-hero name too, huh."

She was partly talking to herself - she liked her name, it fit and was something different. Aidan sounded like that guy from Sex And The City...

"I don't think any police officers would even notice this, we're out in the middle of nowhere. Which is why I was flying around - no people to freak out. I guess if they stumble across it later, it might weird them out," She flicked a stone at the wrecked bike. "You'd think people would be used to strange mutant activity by now."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan cringed at the stone - but, ah, what was the use?

"Nah, not in our lifetime."

He pursed his lips, deep in thought, not quite looking at Banner.

"Um... this is gonna sound really weird... but... do you know what date it is?"

[Banner Laverick]

"It's Saturday, July the 12th. Why got a hot date?"

She almost laughed at her own stupid joke, choosing instead to get to her feet, brushing dirt off her bum.

"You seriously don't know the date?"

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan laughed, too - it was just a little forced.

"Well, you know, um..."

He also stood and dusted himself off as he tried to think of what it was she knew.

"It was dark when I blacked out, I just wanted to be sure I hadn't lost a whole day. Or," he laughed again, "a year or anything."

He tucked his jacket under one arm. "I mean, it is still two thousand si--" He coughed suddenly. "Sev..." He let the syllable die there, and then ventured, "Two thousand eight? Election year, right?"

[Banner Laverick]

"Yeah, I guess so."

They stood there awkwardly, Banner with her hands in her pockets, rocking on her toes again.

"Uh, did you need a lift anywhere? I mean, I could carry your bike for you, but then you'd be stuck here. Plus it would be hard to explain why I'm carrying a heavy motorcycle around too..."

[Aidan Fox]

He breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Yeah, actually... I was trying to find a place called Cullen's Institute. I know it's around here somewhere, and I know it's mutant-friendly, and the fact is I don't have anywhere to stay right now."

Aidan glanced down at his bike despondently. "It's sort of a long story."

[Banner Laverick]

"OOOOH CULLENS! I go there!"

She immediately grabbed his hand, ready to fly away then and there.

"You'll like it there. It's not my favorite place, cos, you know, I have friends and a boyfriend back home, but it's still pretty cool. They teach you how to use your powers, and you get your own room. Plus free food that you don't have to cook, yay..."

Her cheeks flushed a deep shade of red. "Uhm, yeah. So, I can take you there, if you don't mind being carried."

[Aidan Fox]

The sudden outburst was unexpected. But at least he knew he'd found... or had been found by... the right girl.

"Well, it's the only way I'm getting anywhere. So how do we--"

A thick cloud chose that moment to pass in front of the sun. And something heavy scraped through the woods below them. Aidan started and glanced down past the guardrail, but he couldn't see anything.

[Banner Laverick]

Okay, she did jump when they both heard a strange scrapping noise coming from the woods. She started to pull him away from the guardrail, getting ready to pick him up and just fly the heck outta there.

"I carry you, or you can hold onto me. I think, maybe, we should get going..."

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan didn't resist in the slightest. "Yeah, uh, sounds good... let's go!"

He pulled his jacket back on so his hands would be free. "Just grab me around the waist, I can cover us if we need it--"

There was a low, bubbling growl that called to mind a lion sniffing around its cage at feeding time. About fifty feet below them a sapling bent aside and snapped back upright again.

[Banner Laverick]

Banner nodded, wrapping her arms around his waist. They were airborne in seconds, over the forest where the weird noises came from.

"Cover us if we need it? Hopefully we'll be long gone before whatever that is gets up the hill..."

[Aidan Fox]

"Yeah, only problem is--"

Something crashed upward through the branches below. Aidan looked down and caught an impression of wings out of the corner of his eye.

"...these things can fly!"

The monster let out a scream, like squealing glass and metal. Somehow it didn't appear quite as substantial in the daylight as it had at night, like it was a shadow, semi-transparent, a spidery, demonic figure with the wingspan of a small-engine plane. With a surge from its wings it soared rapidly toward Banner and her burden.

[Banner Laverick]

"Lovely."

With a grunt, she tightened her grip on Aidan, flying as fast as possible, as high as she could go. Maybe it wouldn't be able to catch them if they got too high? Whatever it was, it was fast approaching them, shrieking like one of the Ring Wraiths from LOTR. She turned to face it, putting him in front of her.

"Care to cover us, maybe distract it long enough that we can get the heck out of here?!"

[Aidan Fox]

"I'll do what I can, just keep us moving!"

Somehow, Aidan didn't seem at all discomfited by being hauled around by a flying teenager, and he even leaned into Banner's aerobatic maneuver as a matter of reflex. He held out his hands between himself and the monster and fired off a cobalt-blue jet of flame. It twisted and coiled in midair like a huge snake, and then a head formed on the end and snapped at the creature. The banshee howled and wheeled away, but already it was circling back, gaining altitude again.

"That'll buy us some distance. If you've got some kinda turbo, now's the time to use it!"

[Banner Laverick]

She nodded, zipping away from the banshee as fast as she could go. Banner had never seen anything like it, or anything that was as fast as she was when it came to flying that wasn't like, a plane or something. The fact that she had Aidans' extra weight wasn't helping...although, the thought of tossing him at the creature and flying home had crossed her mind.

[Aidan Fox]

They passed into a low-hanging cloud, and the sudden cold spray made Aidan glad he'd put his jacket back on. He'd lost sight of the monster, and he hoped that meant it had lost sight of them.

Though he wasn't entirely sure that thing flew by sight.

When they broke out into the clear air again, he craned his neck from one side to the other, scanning the horizons, and he didn't see the thing. "I think we lost it," he said hopefully.

That was when he looked straight down. There it was, matching their pace like a shadow on the ground, gliding about a hundred feet below them. Which meant it'd catch them as soon as they tried to descend.

"Um. Check that. We've got a problem."

[Banner Laverick]

"What the hell is that thing?"

Banner had glanced down, seeing it matching her pace below them. There would be no way to land without having to fight it off. Somehow, she didn't think pure brute force would work on it.

"And why is it following you? What's the deal?"

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan just let himself dangle from Banner's arms. He didn't want to use up his strength just riding along in case he needed it later.

"Yeah, um, it's a long story."

[Banner Laverick]

"It's a long drop, and I think our friend there would have fun tossing you around like a cat with a mouse if I let you go..."

She let her grip loosen. Just a bit. This being cryptic crap was not cool.

[Aidan Fox]

"Gah!" Aidan tried to grab a hold of her elbows just in case, but his angle was terrible. "All right, all right. How do I explain this... Woah!"

He'd thought he felt her grip shift again. He twisted his neck to give her a dirty look, but he couldn't see her face. "It's from the Astral Plane. Whatever you want to call it, a demon, an evil spirit, a ghost... it doesn't belong in this world, it knows it, and it's really cranky about it."

[Banner Laverick]

"How did it get here?! Are you some kind of weirdo magician or something? This makes no sense!"

Banner adjusted her hold on him, circling back through the clouds. The shadow below them did the same. Crap.

[Aidan Fox]

"Like you flying makes any more sense?" Aidan snapped back. "Look, I don't know how it happened. It just did. And these things have been after me ever since."

He chewed his lip and looked down. "How far did you say it was to Cullen's?"

[Banner Laverick]

"Not that much farther, if I keep this speed up. And me flying makes WAY more sense than some smoke-demon creature from the Astral plane. Snap at me again and you can kiss the pavement."

She could feel a huge frown creeping onto her face. The sooner they got to Cullens, the better.

[Aidan Fox]

"Okay, geeze! You asked!"

He might've pointed out that she couldn't very well argue that the thing existed, and she was welcome to speculate as long as she got them the hell out of there, but he decided she didn't need any more incentive to drop him and fly.

Still, something was nagging him. "If we lead it to Cullen's... Is there gonna be anybody there able to stop it?"

[Banner Laverick]

"I'd hope so."

They flew in silence, Banner running that thought through her head. Surely SOMEONE at Cullens would be able to do something, right? If not a student, then for sure a teacher. The campus was coming into sight, only a minute or so away. Their "shadow" was still with them; hopefully someone was out and about on the grounds...

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan could see the wooded hill looming up with the fenced-in lawns and the mix of antique colonial architecture with newer, utilitarian constructions that marked the Cullen's compound.

"We oughta be visible pretty soon. If anyone's looking..."

He glanced downward to keep tabs on the monster, but he couldn't see it anymore. All he could see was miles of wooded hillside - plenty of available cover if the thing wanted to hide.

"Oh, crap... where is it?"

[Freight Train]

Freight Train was out, plugged into her mp3 player and trying to figure out what to do with her day. She was tired of being inside, tired of playing basketball by herself, tired of her Wii, and now...tired of standing on the lawn and looking at the trees. She was about to wander off when something came zooming up over the treetops. The little bruiser shielded her eyes and squinted.

"...Sunshine? Izzat you?"

The Tiny Titan couldn't tell what the hell Banner was carrying, and her confusion seeped into her posture as her head tilted, her jaw slackened, and her body sagged. She also didn't see what in the world she was flying away from so quickly.

"SUNSHINE! WHERE'S THE FIRE!?"

[Chartis]

Clarity Cleine paused by the steps of the Cullen Institute to untangle a small bloom of forget-me-not's from the ivy growing up the stone exterior. The woman had an armful of papers - she'd been making some copies - and was dangerously close to being late for her meeting with Ethan but the distraction was too welcomed to resist.

It was a gorgeous day and while she would have liked nothing more than to wander the grounds, Clarity had a busy afternoon scheduled. A lot more had been involved in moving back to the school and she was taking the opportunity to tie up loose ends.

Smiling as she freed the little flowers, the teleporter started as a loud shout reached her ears. Clarity straightened and looked about, identifying the source of the shout as one of the students she'd briefly met earlier in the week. Lousy with names on the best of days, the woman refrained from going over and instead glanced upwards to look at what had so caught the girl's attention.

While it was not unusual to witness demonstrations of powers, the distinctively desperate appearance of Banner's flight - whose passenger Clarity did not recognize, even faintly - made her brow furrow. Out of instinct she surveyed the air around them for a reason to explain the behavior: nothing. That was strange. Perhaps something was wrong with the boy?

They were descending rapidly and Clarity headed towards their approximate landing point, plans forgotten.

[Banner Laverick]

"SUNSHINE! WHERE'S THE FIRE!?"

"Gah!"

She nearly dropped Aidan, as she rather abruptly ended her flight and landed in a heap a few feet from FT. Banner rolled onto her back, eyes shut. Worst. Landing. Ever.

...and of course, everyone had to see it. She could feel that familar burning in her cheeks as she sat up, checking herself over out of habit before checking on Aidan.

"You okay?"

[Aidan Fox]

Thank God Aidan knew how to crash-land. He didn't try to catch himself, just rolled shoulder over shoulder to kill his momentum. His ribs hurt like hell, though.

He grit his teeth and tried not to cough, since it wouldn't do his ribs any good, and hefted himself up on one arm. "I think so. Where'd --"

Aidan was suddenly aware of what looked like an elementary-age girl running their way. "You, shortstack, get help - we've got company!"

That cloud they'd been flying through had somehow found its way to Cullen's. It drifted in front of the sun, throwing the whole campus into shadow. Aidan knew the Astral demon couldn't be far behind.

[Freight Train]

SHORTSTACK!?

"Look, chump, I am help!" she yelled as she skidded to a stop. Her heels left small trenches in the soft ground as her powers tried to keep her moving, and her upper body snapped forward, bringing her face inches from Aidan's own. "If I'd hit you just now, you'd be a smear. So whatever company you brought, I got it covered." She was absolutely livid, red in the face and breathing heavy.

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan stared at the girl incredulously, but he kept his mouth shut. Maybe you didn't think a tiny, yapping dog could kill you, but you still didn't stick your fingers near its mouth.

But that was when a long, bony talon hooked over the top of the brick wall at the edge of the grounds, followed by another, and then the creature hauled itself to perch on the wall like a gargoyle. It leaned forward under the shade of its wings, and a thick drop of viscous fluid fell from its anglerfish jaws and melted the grass underneath.

The leading edge of the cloud's shadow was slowly creeping toward the three mutants on the lawn. The creature dropped from the wall and prowled just behind the advancing penumbra, growling like a death rattle.

Aidan turned toward the demon, and his hands burst into blue flame. Which was good, because it helped hide to how much his hands were shaking.

"No offense... but you think you might want to reconsider that?"

[Chartis]

"Are you two alright?"

The inquiry made it to the group a full three seconds before Clarity did, arriving just in time to witness the little verbal scuffle between the strange boy and Freight Train. With a concerned tilt to her mouth, the woman helped Banner up, motherly instinct and experience guiding her hands over the girl to check for the three B's: broken, bleeding, badly bruised. Satisfied that she wasn't in immediate danger of collapsing, the European teleporter turned to her cargo, who'd tumbled pretty fantastically.

Clarity opened her mouth to ask after him but the words never quite left the back of her throat. Instead, as her tremulously blue eyes shifted to discern just what the moving shadow in the corner of their gaze was, a strangled squawk emerged.

Her mind tried to cobble together some sort of recognition, but it was coming up empty. The only thing Clarity knew--felt--for certain, was that that? Was not a mutant.

And that it probably wasn't here to ask about admission requirements, either.

Snapping to guarded attention, Clarity half-turned her head towards Aidan, rigid tension showing in every line of her posture.

"You." Her faintly-accented voice held just an edge of growl. "What is that?"

[Freight Train]

Little Train was visibly shaken by the monster that loomed up from the wall. She stepped back a few paces, tripping over her own trenches as it began to prowl forward. She looked at the adult; she was frightened, but looked pretty mad. New boy looked just mad. Sunshine hadn't recovered yet, but Freight Train figured she'd be pretty cheesed off, too. So. Mad.

"No offense... but you think you might want to reconsider that?"

Her face twisted into a sneer, as much for herself as for Aidan's skepticism. "No way, Jazz Hands." She pushed herself to her feet, her powers quickly kicking in and bringing her from a controlled run to an unstoppable sprint. The ground sank beneath her feet, sod sprayed up from her heels, and a primal scream of fear and anger let loose from her as she prepared, for the second time in her life, to "freight train" another living creature.

"Hope you like flyin',"she thought grimly, turning her body to check the beast with a frail-looking shoulder.

[Aidan Fox]

She'd started moving before anyone else could react - the creature just spread its talons wide for this little snack running so obligingly into its open arms.

There was a resounding CRACK! and the demon flipped up into the air over Freight Train's back. It gave an infuriated scream and tumbled to the ground in a heap of bony joints and leathery wings.

Disoriented, but seemingly uninjured, it leapt into the air after the girl and reached its scythe-like claws toward her unprotected back.

[Banner Laverick]

"Damnit!"

Banner leap into the air, grabbing the beasts' tail just before it sunk it's claws into pipsqueak. With all her strength, she twisted her body, flinging the creature the other way, towards Aidan and Clarity. Hopefully they'd teleport outta the way...unless it managed to stop itself mid-throw. She got into a defensive position, just in case...

[Freight Train]

She heard her shirt get shredded as the thing tried to hurt her; not that it would've had much success with her still going full-speed. She stopped herself with a short hop that planted both feet firmly in the ground, but tripped and rolled as the soft ground gave way beneath her. She lay face-down, reaching behind her back to tie her shirt on at the waist.

"What I wouldn't give for invincible clothes," she grumbled, turning her head to see how the others were doing.

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan danced back and forth looking for a clean shot, but Banner and Freight Train were still too close, up until Banner flung the demon like an ugly and very bad-tempered hammer. Aidan stepped in front of Clarity to shield her and blasted a huge blue fireball which engulfed the monster.

The demon went down in a screaming, burning heap, but Aidan didn't dare think he'd finished it off. He peeked over his shoulder at Clarity and said, "In advance, I'm really sorry about the grass."

He spread his arms, and the flames in his hands leapt to the ground, rapidly eating up a patch about ten yards across. Before the white-hot flames had expended themselves, Aidan closed them together on the still-writhing demon. Its screams grew louder, and an awful stench filled the air.

But then a still-burning limb swung out of the blaze and caught Aidan in the sternum, throwing him backwards ten feet, and the demon shook off the flames and rose from the ground. Its membranous wings were almost completely burned away, and its flesh was still smoldering, but the monster still charged after Aidan, sweeping Clarity aside with a careless flick from one bony wing-arm.

[Francoise Dupont]

Elsewhere in the grounds, the commotion had not gone unnoticed. The noise had reached Francoise Dupont, who sat with knees drawn up to her chest in silent and solitary thought, staring emptily at the sky. She blinked, the haze that had clouded her vision slipping away, and shakily began to rise from her chair. With bare-feet, she padded out onto the front lawn and looked, uncomprehending, across the distance between herself and the flame-wreathed conflict – was that Clarity and Carlos? A feeling like vertigo threatened to pitch her forwards, but she steadied herself and began to move quickly across the grass, her dark hair whipping in the air like ravens wings.

“Stop, please!”