Explosive Situation

Players:

Nikki

Felix

Alessia

Caitlin

Wesley

Miriam

Adam

It's the middle of the afternoon. Typically cold, a bit windy with a touch of stinky polution in the air, the atmosphere couldn't be more boring or unmemorable. People mill about on this mostly quiet road that is a junction between two busy sections of town. Not a couple blocks off is Washington Park but here, it's just small businesses, some apartments and a couple of buildings that haven't been used in a good long time.

Loping along with the distance-eating rapidity of an habitual runner, a tall and athletic young woman in all-black lycra running gear wends her way through the light traffic on the sidewalks, moving in the direction of Washington Park. Sporting a tattoo at the top of each arm and a determined expression on her face, she glances intermittently at a watch on her wrist, hitting a stop button on it whenever forced to wait at a side-road for motorised traffic to pass.

Nikki just got off work at Steve's and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon browsing through shops in her workplace's immediate environs. In her mind, there's no place better for such mindless relaxation than this neighborhood, and at the moment she's striding along the sidewalk, trying to spot good sales ads in a weatherbeaten copy of the Village Voice. With the magazine held out in front of her like that, she's not exactly attentive to what's going on around her, but she seems to have an almost uncanny ability to avoid running into other people without bothering with anything as crass as looking where she's going.

Felix walked along the street, dressed in his usual jeans and a T-shirt, plus a light jacket ... ohh, and a sleek black cat with a royal purple belled collar riding shotgun on his left shoulder, peering at one and all with a curious, intelligent air. Felix and Adam, who was with them, were in the middle of trying to find out where Miranda had been experimented on, and were, therefore, doing a lot of hoofing it around the city. This was yet another run, chosen mostly for the unused buildings in the area, which could be converted to an illicit lab with a bit of imagination and elbow grease.

Alessia shivers as a wisp of wind slips down the collar of her coat, hands clenching a moment, wishing she had worn gloves. Her southern blood just wasn't used to this weather. A check of her watch, fingers lifting to push red back from her face. Wishing she'd brought her cell phone, then again, it probably wouldn't do her any good. Heading from the direction of the park, hoping she had her directions right!

It's very much the sort of area that, for most people, is just part-way between one place and another. That's all it is for Miriam, certainly. Her jacket zipped up mostly for appearances sake, she trudges along the road not really paying attention to who else is around. This part of the city just isnt' that interesting to her, after all. She sips a 'froofroo' iced thing from Starbucks as she walks.

There's certainly nothing unusual about two grown men walking around with a little black cat, not even if they occasionally speak to it like they expect it to respond. As they walk and Adam is eyeing another building possibility, he reaches over to scritch Miranda's head. "Pretty quiet around here...think that's a good sign?" He muses toward Felix.

That cat just stops in its motion, ears falling back against its head. It looks around as if sniffing the air and it turns to Felix with a long, drawn out meow. As it lets out that little cry, there seems to be a little scuffle going on in a building. Two people start yelling then a moment later, it escalates to blows. Sounds like a robbery in progress.

"Could be." Felix admits. "Depends on whether the lab is approved or not. If it isn't, then yeah, this sort of area'd be a good place to hide. If it is, they could have one of those fancy buildings in the better part of town and no one ... " Felix peters off as Miranda reacts, then turns his attention in the direction she's looking. "Uh oh. Trouble." He doesn't elaborate, since Adam probably heard that too.

Having just spotted a familiar-looking figure up ahead, Caitlin had put in an extra burst of speed to close the distance on Nikki when that commotion became loud enough to provide a distraction. Slowing a touch, she frowns in the direction of the sounds of violence, still closing on Miss Vibe.

Alessia gets lost in a crowd a moment, a usual thing when you're as short as she. Hands rub together, edging her way around some warm bodies to get free of the feeling of being surrounded. Batting red hair back from her face again, muttering to herself about the wind, and how she should have braided it today. A chill up her spine at the sounds of trouble. A sigh, head down a bit to try and keep going and ignore it. Looking for a taller redhead, in black of course.

Miriam is oblivious for a moment, having somewhat tuned out the annoyances the city is full of. When it escalates though, she blinks and tries to figure out where it's coming from. She's a little further from it, so that takes a few moments.

Adam turns as well, eyes narrowing toward the building. "Well...it is New York." He muses, but he also comes to a pause with his companions. "Let's hang back, see what's going on..."

After noting a few choice discounts with sloppy dog-ears, Nikki stuffs the magazine into her purse and actually blinks a bit as she starts paying attention to the world around her again. The first thing she picks up on is the yelling from across the road. As is the general human instinct, she slows her pace slightly and looks toward the sound, making sure nobody's getting angry at /her/. This will give Caitlin an easy opportunity to catch up, and also gives Nikki a chance to carefully inspect the storefront in question. Yay directional senses!

Wesley turns his head towards the yelling, raising an eyebrow. He glances towards his friends, hands in his jacket pockets, hovering close to Nikki.

Nearing Nikki, Caitlin slows still further, attention still largely turned towards the source of the commotion.

Felix snorts as he reaches up to pet Miranda reassuringly. "Yeah, definitely New York, but you and I both know weird shit's been going on, so definitely with the wait to see what's going on." He moves a bit closer to the building, but on a sideways slant, listening intently.

The fight spills into the street so suddenly it startles people who were just beginning to realize that anything was happening. Glass breaks as a person comes tumbling through the front of the establishment and he lands -hard- on his back, letting out a grunt. The breath was knocked out of him for sure. Someone follows carrying a big ass gun and aiming it right at his face. "Fucking bitch!" He yells out. "Think you can try that shit with us? Fuck you!"

Jackpot! At least the she thinks so.. does Caitlin have tattoos? Trying to remember, almost blundering right into broken glass and big ass gun pointing. "oh shit.." breathed, backpedalling a step or two. No.. she won't do it.. okay, so she will. Damnit. "Ah so need a vacation.." Hands pushed into pockets, watching the man with the gun, eyes looking a little unfocused, trying to scale back the anger with a little forced calm.Maybe not totally ethical, but is it ethical to let someone maybe blow someone else's head off? Decisions, decisions.

It's the city. There is apparently violence a lot. Not that Miriam has a lot of experience with it. People yell. Glass gets broken. Big ass guns... well, okay. She's pretty sure that isn't quite as normal even in Manhattan. She just stares at the moment, getting only close enough to see better. Because that happens a lot in the city, too.

Ooh, street theatre. Nikki's way too far away to intervene in this situation, so as casually as possible, she just starts walking toward the disturbance. Instincts honed by more than a year of life in New York halt her before she steps right out into traffic, so she's left hesitating between two parallel-parked cars and glancing up and down the street to make sure she's not going to get flattened if she tries to cross.

Well crap. Felix looks around frantically, for something to throw or otherwise startle the gun-toter. Whoever the poor sap on the ground is, and whatever he's done ... yeah. Getting his face blown off wasn't good. And if the poor sap on the ground is an innocent civilian ...

Adam is startled by the window crash and now his eyes aer really taking in the situation. Not good, but still not wholly unormal, either, not like throngs of people trying to kill each other. "Felix...think she can make him act like a putty tat for us?"

Wesley's years as a New Yorker have taught him a few things. One of which is to give anyone waving a gun around a wide berth. You'll live longer. It's with this pragmatic stance that he hovers back, watching from a distance.

Caitlin comes to a rather hasty halt, part-way round one of the cars Nikki's now standing between, perhaps on the periphery of her friend's awareness. Panting lightly, she frowns worriedly across the street, apparently either disinclined or unable to intervene at this point.

"No! I didn't mean to!" Blam! The gun cuts the begging short, he could've been ready to shoot even as he stepped out of the place (a little grocery store by the looks at it). That explosive shot makes the cat leap onto Felix, crawling if necessary to get up to his shoulders. It's also enough to freak out the crowds that go -darting- away, and drawing back. The person who fired the gun just looks around and starts to laugh. "That's not all you fucking idiots! Get ready!"

Since she's peering off to the side, Nikki does indeed spot Caitlin paused, as she is, on the threshold of the street. "Cait?" she calls, before being thrown off-balance completely by the gunshot. After a moment, she shakes her head quickly, glances to the either side to assure herself that she's not going to get killed crossing the street, and bolts across. If the Goth-girl follows suit, Nikki will aim to converge with her on the other side of the street. "I'll try to get behind him," she announces in a low voice, then suits action to words, circling to try to get the drop on the gunman. She's so focused on the variables she's aware of that she still hasn't spotted any of her schoolmates.

"Worth a try." Felix says, but before he can do or say anything ... it's too late. Felix winces. "Shit. Adam, we have a winner!" Miranda, anything you can do to help, do it!" He backpedalled, getting a car between himself and gun-boy. And hoped Miranda understood his request.

Miriam's heart leaps way up into her throat when the gun goes off, and she jumps back in reaction. Not that she's that close to it all, but still. For the moment, she just stays one of the many bystanders without the sense to go running.

Alessia shudders, shaking her head and reeling a bit. Empathy sort of thrown back in her face with the force of a fastball. Dazed for a second, one of the last of the crowd she'd been in to scatter. Staring at the shooter with a sort of disbelief in her expression. Faint throb already starting, before she's frowning, shoulders tensing as if physical tension will help her push harder. She should be used to trying to influence by now, shouldn't she?

Adam drops back as well, crouching behind the car. "At least people are leaving. Well...some people. Fuck me." He utters the curse because he happens to have spotted both Nikki and Caitlin and elbows Felix to point this out to him as well. "The cavalry's here." He quips sarcastically.

Wesley flinches at the rapport of the gun, pulling out his cell. He calls 911 as he crosses the street. Of course, in this neighborhood? Who knows how long before they actually show up. He keeps an eye on his schoolmates, observing their actions as he cradles the phone between ear and shoulder to free up his hands for pulling on a pair of gloves, leather with steel slot knuckles.

"Crap." Felix says, when he spots Nikki and Caitlin. Then he sees two more faces he knows. "Make that double crap. Alessia and Wes are out there too." He glances around again, looking for something to throw at the gun-toter. One encounter with a gun per lifetime was his limit ... at least for now.

Looking rather decidedly as if Nikki's plan has caught her by surprise, Caitlin pauses a moment before sprinting across the road, moving at an angle to give the shooter a wide berth as if running for a door or the alleyway near the shop. As she gets closer, it seems as if she is indeed set on disappearing at speed into the cover of the alley.

People watch the gunmen curiously but from a safe distance and only while they're actually moving away from the scene. There are many cell phones out to call the cops and the guy seems to notice. "Yeah! Call them! Get some more people here to witness this shit! This will be -real-!! No more playing!" a closer examination: he's bald, tall and buff with just a tanktop, black cargo pants and combat boots. There's a knife in his belt and of course the big revolver in his hand.

Finally, a bit of luck! The gunman ignores her in the general chaos and Nikki manages to get out of his line of sight -- and not incidentally, the line of fire. As soon as he's got his back turned toward her, she approaches as quickly and as quietly as she can manage; thank god she picked sneakers today. She's far too focused on her target to pay attention to anything in her peripheral vision, and that includes her schoolmates. But to anyone watching, it's going to look like she's trying to get into /grappling/ distance with this madman. Is she insane?

Alessia shifts, moving to press closer to the side of the building, watching the big bald guy as if he's a charmer and she's a snake. She's forgotten Caitlin, the plans to meet up and catch up over coffee. Calm wasn't working, and she's biting on her lip, her bad habit. A deep breath, discarding calm to try a dirtier approach, to try and make him /afraid/ of everyone watching him.

Adam takes another look and grumbles. "Oh frickin' great. And /I'm/ reckless!" He growls under his breath was he watches from his vantage point, Nikki's approach. "All I can think of is to try and draw the fire..or at least get his attention." But he's not sure, having been told off so many times for this tactic.

Wesley watches Nikki's rather dumb plan. He sighs, and starts moving more quickly, jogging towards the gunman now. "Hey, Baldy, what the fuck is your problem?!" he yells before ducking into an alley, hesitating just enough to be spotted should the gunman look in the direction of his voice.

Felix isn't liking this. "He's sounding rather a lot like that guy at Dark Facade." He pointed out. "And if it's the same bunch ... " He peters off as feline vision picks Nikki out ... and what she's doing. "And getting his attention is a plan." CRAZY woman! But ... He jerks to a standing position. "Hey, doofus!" He yells. Get the man's attention on him. Away from the girl sneaking up on him from behind. "You got big cojones, talking like that with a gun in your hand. Too shit scared to fight like a real man?" He was /so/ going to die. Really. He got ready to dive for cover the instant the guy made like he was gonna shoot.

The guy doesn't seem to be paying attention. In fact, he seems to be biding his time. He's not even really overly concerned but even as Alessia makes an attempt to 'affect' him, he starts to glance furtively over his shoulder into the store. Perhaps his plan is taking longer than expected... Sirens sound in the distance.

Adam grabs Felix by his shirt, jerking him back down. "Well that worked. Look at him...he's waiting for something. And that something might be coming whether we take Mr. Happy there out or not...just keep those senses peeled."

Nikki's only becoming more scared as she gets closer to her gun-toting quarry. Technically, this is how she /wanted/ things to go, but still -- sneaking up on armed vigilantes is not exactly something she does to unwind on the weekends. She's almost too terrified to breathe, and the fact that the crazy man turns a looks /right at her/ for a moment sure doesn't help. But he doesn't seem inclined to do anything about it, so after a moment's pause, she continues her approach. As she gets within arm's reach, she steels herself and, well, reaches out her arms to try and suddenly clap them on either side of the guy's head. If she manages to do so, even for a moment, she's going to give his temples such an intense pulse of random vibration that -- at least on the few occasions she's tried this before -- he'll crumple to the ground either unconscious or in a shrieking heap of pain.

Wesley peeks out from the alley. No gunshots? He's somewhat disappointed. His eyes lock on Nikki, and he starts jogging closer again, grumbling something about Southerners.

Damnit, was this guy emotionally moronic or something? Nevermind, don't answer that. Following his glance into the shop, before she was looking around her. Noticing Felix, and then watching some random, apparently psychotic girl with a death wise, trying to sneak up on Bald and Batshit insane guy. If he gets distracted enough to look away, Al's going for sliding into the shop itself. Something's up. She plans on f'ing it up if she can.

Felix grunts as he gets pulled down on his ass. "Hey, watch it." He grouses, but it's more for form than as an actual complaint. "And you're right ... definitely waiting for something." He starts scanning the area, splitting his attention between sight, sound, and smell, trying to catch the least whiff of anything out of the ordinary.

Inside the shop, there's a loud beeping but it's buried somewhere perhaps behind the counter near the cash register. There's an attendant but he's unconscious on the floor, bleeding by the chips. The bald guy screams and flops on the ground. The gun goes scattering out of sight.

Alessia darts inside.. beeping? Can't be good. Damnit. Why can't she just have a few weeks without this crap? Kneeling by the attendent, sure the deeping is a bomb. Checking for a pulse, trying to rouse him. "C'mon now, honey, we gotta get ya outta here. "

Caitlin dashes into the alleyway, disappearing from sight of those out on the street... and doesn't emerge. A few moments later, however, she thinks as "loudly" as she can, <If there happens to be an eavesdropping telepath out there, I've got some news for you...>

She did it? Seriously? Nikki looks down at her hands, somewhat in shock. On the one hand, she can't believe it was that easy. On entirely another level, the feeling of gripping someone's skull and shaking it so hard that the gray matter impacts the walls of the brainpan... well, let's just say it isn't pleasant. Her legs wobble slightly, and then she drops to her knees, skin going a little green. She shudders violently, then suddenly darts a glance over at the interior of the store. Did she just hear some sort of weird noise? She's in no state to be sure.

In a burst of speed not normally seen from a human, Wes rushes over, kicking the gun aside, less the gunman recover and get any ideas. He looks at Nikki. "You are absolutely insane," he says, kneeling by her. "Does anyone else hear beeping?"

Adam growls under his breath just in irritation and anxiety. "He was waiting...and looking at the shop. Something's comming out of that shop..." Bad feelings abound. He stands up and calls across the street, "NIKKI! Get out of the way! Dammit WES, MOVE!"

"Shit. Shit shit shit." Felix says. "A bomb. A motherfucking bomb. NIKKI, WES, ALESSIA ... GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THE BUILDING!!!!!" He bellows at the top of his lungs ... but he's too late to stop Alessia. "Shit. Shit shit shit." He's at war with himself. Human instinct says run for the hills. The animal in his head, however, is shrieking about 'cubs' and packmembers being in trouble, and DO SOMETHING, dammit! Seeing Nikki go down decides him. He rushes forward to grab her. "Move, Nikki, move. Bomb. Bomb in the fucking building. Wes, now! Out of range! MOVE!"

You know, there's nothing like someone shouting 'BOMB' to get New Yorkers fleeing. Watching kind of stops being fun at that point. Miriam, too, is extremely motivated to get around the nearest corner in case there really is one and it goes off. She doesn't know Felix all that well, but he really doesn't seem the sort to joke about that kind of thing.

Alessia glances out the door, hearing Felix, recognizing his voice. What, does he think she's a moron? She knows, but she can't just leave this guy here! Shaking him harder, trying to rouse him without spreading the panic building into into the poor guy.He's had a rough day already. "C'mon sugar, Ah can' carry ya all by mahself." Though she'd about to start trying to drag him.
Wesley glances inside, spotting the somewhat familiar face. He jumps into the building, rushing to the unconscious man. "We've got to stop meeting like this," he jokes darkly. "Felix, get Nikki clear, I've got these two," he calls over his shoulder, kneeling to lift the man. "Let's go~" he says with a rather powerful sense of urgency.

The way Nikki is vibrating, touching her directly is an unsettling sensation. Fortunately she's a bit bundled up, so Felix would have to grab pretty tightly to feel it. There's no such insulation for her reaction when she looks over and sees who is touching her. For a nightmarish moment, the twisted feeling of revulsion in her gut seems to have manifested itself as her mental prototype of a mutant who uses his power to hurt. She gives a strangled cry, bashes his hand away, and scrambles crabwise backward to get away from him. "Get away from me!" she screams accusingly.

Her eyes snap up, that split second of remembering the feel of his hand on her arm, scent of blood and sickening feeling of fear. " Yeah, ya might wanna stop runnin' inta me. Nevah seems ta happen on a good day. Hate ta be someone's bad luck charm. " She's paling, head ducking, fear spiking unreasonably. For no real reason, her chest is suddenly feeling tight, throat dry. "Thanks. " Because she would have had a whole lot harder time dragging the guy clear than Wes is seeming to have getting him up. Forcing herself to her feet, gray on the edges of her vision only making things worse as she's running for the last place she heard Felix's voice.

While the crowds out the front of the building are - for the most part - rapidly clearing the street or taking cover, activity picks up around the back. Anyone daring enough to remain so close to the shop as to have a view down that side alley might catch glimpses of black movement intermittently darting to and fro across its far end, a good ten or fifteen feet above ground...

Wesley throws the attendant over his shoulder, walking out of the store. "I'm starting to think you're your own," he says to Alessia. He glances at Nikki, raising an eyebrow. "Nikki, come on, deal with this later. Bomb, ticking, big boom, let's /go/." He kneels, lifting up insane bald gunman by the back of his pants. Baldy, meet Wedgie, you're going to be close friends. "I'm out of arms," he points out, still not leaving without his friend. He seems to have no problem carrying a full grown man one handed.

An isolated moment of panting and shaking is enough time for Nikki to establish that, no, she isn't facing some hallucinatory projection of her bloodthirsty id. This is a real person who just happened to be waiting in the wrong wings at the wrong time. And hasn't eviscerated anybody in, what, weeks? "Sorry," she grunts gracelessly. Better apologies will have to wait. She levers herself to her feet without assistance and stands -- albeit a bit shakily. By the time she's upright, her addled brain has also sorted the past few seconds' dialogue into something resembling sense. "Bomb. Wheee," she comments dryly, stumbling away from the building without pausing to check any alleyways for suspicious movement.

Felix doesn't have /time/ for this. But then she seems to recover, and he lets it go, just stays close to grab her if she can't keep her feet. "Forgiven ... and we /really/ need to talk later." He tells her. He doesn't stop moving until he's put a building between himself and that bomb. "Everybody duck and cover. No freaking idea how big that bomb is." It could take out a six foot square area ... or a six hundred foot square area.

Alessia mutters. "If only ya knew." Mostly to herself, because Wes couldn't know. "Felix?" Half hoping, half sure she was just imagining him. Though they DID seem to have a bad habit of being around each other when bad things happen. Gray was encroaching more and more on her vision, fingers feeling cold even though her face was hot. Heart was thudding in her chest like a big bass drum. Heaven help felix if he touches bare skin, unless he /likes/ panic attacks. But Felix she knows, right? Safer than someone she doesn't...

Adam follows Felix out from their cover, but he's there to keep shepherding everyone out of the way, thus, he places a hand on Wesley's back to give him a shove to keep moving. "Wes, he's got her, just go!" There see, good old Nikki snapped out of it. Not being saddled with human cargo, the shadow movement does catch his eye. He takes off after Felix but whispers, "Alley." As he himself makes to duck down one.

Miriam is more than happy to be out of line of sight of the mess, as she waits for the explosion. Not that she wants one, but this seems a better place to be just in case.

The concussive blast is so loud that it is almost surreal. Even accross the street, people are tossed to the ground. There's a lot of screaming as the former convenience store is annihilated. A plume of fire rises up into the sky, smoke following closely behind. Debris clatters into the street consisting of flaming food stuffs, brick, wood and body parts. Amazingly, it's only that building that takes any serious damage. The flames are from some incendiary device planted elsewhere in the building. It's a spectacular display of carnage. but it's over just that quick.

Wesley stumbles forward with the shove. Holding not one, but two full grown adults does not do good things for your balance. The explosion doesn't exactly help either, as he falls over onto the hard concrete. Baldy breaks his fall though, just as he breaks the attendants.

Felix gets dropped ... /hard/ ... by the sonic blast of the explosion. He's gotten better at dealing with stuff ... but this? Ha ha ha. Yeah, right. He crumples to the ground like he's been shot, hands clamping uselessly against his ears in belated self-defense, curling up into a fetal ball as he fights the pain.

"Shit. Shitshitshit." Nikki halts her run, eyes bugging out with alarm just as the explosion occurs. She whirls immediately, tottering dangerously from the resulting vertigo. "Cait! Where's Caitlin?" she shouts, darting /back out/ into the roadway. "God damnit I lost track of her! Where did she go!?" She's trying to peer through the smoke and fire, but can't see a damned thing. Heaven help her if there's any flying debris looking for a place to land. The deafening noise of the blast seems to have left her, for one, completely unaffected. She'd prefer a smoke-o-vision perk at the moment, frankly.

Miriam is down the block, but it's still loud and it's still a good shake. She ends up on her rear, covering her ears and staying on the ground until she's sure it's passed. "Mental note: Next time keep walking. New York's insane."

Through that smoke and amidst the crackling of the fire, the falling of debris, and the wailing of almost every nearby car alarm, it's certainly hard to tell whether there's any living movement next to or behind the shattered store. Certainly, watchers might glimpse shapes in the murk....

Trailing after Felix, moving at the pace of a running snail in her panic attack, until that explosion pretty much picks her up and slams her to the pavement. ow. Gray fades into black, that hard pavement, smoke, and debris relegated into unimportance as unconciousness takes over. Naptime was much better with nilla wafers and a pillow.

Adam kind of bounces off each side of the alley between buildings that he'd ducked in to. This would be one of those times he's glad not to have his animal senses while in human form. He pushes himself back to his feet and stumbles, feeling a bit wobbly-legged, to Felix and Alessia where he then allows himself to drop to his knees. "Felix...Hey, you alright?" Te blast effected his hearing of course, so he's talking calmly, but loudly.

A nice big hunk of metal debris crashes to earth a few yards from where Nikki's standing, totaling a parked car instantly. She flinches back from the impact, then peers up nervously into the sky, uttering a nasty swear word. Good thing everyone in the vicinity is nice and deaf. She ducks into the nearest overhead cover -- the entrance to a ruined storefront. She'll have to wait for the rain of debris to subside before she continues her search.

Felix is, at the moment, anything but ok. He's pretty much gone deaf from the blast, and has a headache that's trying its best to creep into migraine territory, and his ears themselves are hurting. Still, once the initial 'ow, shit!' shock, Felix managed to uncurl. He didn't look good, face creased with pain and more than a bit green.

Wesley climbs up. Attendant... okay. Baldy... alive. He looks around, blinking at the smoke. "Nikki?" he cries out, louder than he intended to.

Adam pats Felix gently on the back a couple of times, reassuringly. If the old boy needs a few minutes to recover, Adam will leave him to it, after all, he assumes the blast was the end of the real danger. Instead he goes to check over the girl, Alessia, at least making sure she was breathing by checking her pulse.

Nikki is about to give the search another try when she hears Wesley call. Nothing wrong with her hearing, after all. She never got far from the alleyway, so she grimaces and returns to the mouth of it. "I have to find Cait!" she explains sharply, and -- inconsiderately -- not loudly enough to be clearly heard with damaged ears. Thinking everything has been straightened out, she returns to her task, starting to pick her way through the burning debris field toward the exploded building.

There isn't all that much damage that sticks to Wes. "Have to find who?" he asks, rising up to his feet. He glances towards the two unconscious forms. "I'll help," he offers, voice still a little loud.

And poor Felix was too out of it to maybe warn Adam that she doesn't like to be touched. There's a scream, though most ears wouldn't get the full blood curdling gist of it, before she's tensing on the pavement, as if she can blend into the concrete and get away from being touched. " No! Stop it!" Managing to roll at least, to try and get away from fingers. Head spinning, stomach rolling, and body one big damned ache from slamming into pavement. Curling into a ball, arms over her head as it to protect herself.

Though the smallest fragments of fire have burnt out, the larger ones are still going, and the main body is threatening to settle firmly into the remnants of the building. The smoke, however, is beginning to drift somewhat more uniformly, the air outside its flow starting to clear quite appreciably as most of the debris settles to the ground.

"Christ -- what was that?" Nikki says, stopping and turning /again/ to spot the source of Alessia's scream. She sees that whatever's wrong, Adam seems to be helping, then glances at Wesley's confused expression. It suddenly clicks that she's the only one in this whole mess who can still hear properly. More than properly, if you want to get technical about it. "Did you see where Caitlin went?" she asks Wes, boosting her voice ever so slightly.

Felix manages to peel his eyes open ... that scream reached even him, though it sounded like a whispy whisper heard from the opposite end of a loooooooong tunnel. He saw Adam hovering over Alessia and called out. "Don't touch her ... makes it worse!"

Wesley blinks. "Did I see where who went?" he asks, shaking his head, sweat beading on his brow. His powers, warm clothes, and a burning building don't exactly play well together.

Adam jerks his hand back and flinches at the scream. At least the ear numbing blast meant he didn't take the full brunt of that. "Okay...okay..take it easy." Adam offers, not trying to get close to the girl again. He has just wanted to make sure she was alive and she certainly was. "Ya think?" He mutters in reply to Felix, although it wasn't meant for him to actually hear. This next part is, "I'm going to have a look around." He stands and begins to make a perimeter loop around the area.

She couldn't help it anymore. She's put up with the weird cat stuff, the horrifying haunted house, some freak in a bar that hated mutants calling her the little Mermaid, and all other sorts of crap. She can feel the wetness slipping from under her eyelids, though she can't even hear her own noises. She should apologize to.. whoever. He was only trying to help, but.. she didn't have it in her right now. So she was going to stay there and be pathetic for a couple minutes.

Well, that wasn't exactly illuminating. Nikki rolls her eyes at Wes, then continues toward the building. "I keep forgetting you live in a /cave/," she mutters, keeping her voice intentionally quiet enough to remain unheard. As she approaches the detonated building, she calls out, using a bit of mutant amplification, but buzzing her voice up so it just sounds like a bullhorn. "Cait!" She hastily amends, "Anyone!" then continues, "If you're trapped, tap out a rhythm! Shave and a haircut, or something! We'll use it to find you!" Not exactly the most foolproof plan, but it's just a stopgap. She'll get out of the way once actual rescue workers arrive.

A couple of ambulances arrive along with police cars. The authorities get out and start to help people, trying to ascertain what happened while securing the area.

A cave that doesn't blow up, or murder people in a freakish scene out of some horror movie. Wesley looks around. "Yeah, sure... don't tell me. You find em, I dig them out?" he suggests, slipping off his gloves. As the sirens arrive, he points at Baldy. "All his fault!" he yells.

From somewhere beyond the back of the ruined store, and perhaps a bit off to one side, a long, low-pitched but forceful whistle sounds. Lacking mutant amplification, it's not loud enough to be likely to be heard at any great distance, and certainly not by too many with badly-ringing ears, it should still carry to those close by the shop or with unaffected hearing.

Felix manages to get to his feet, and, still grimacing in pain, nevertheless goes after Nikki once he realizes what she's doing. He can't hear for shit, but he can smell. And see. It'll help.

Alessia is with it enough to notice the flashing lights. Ambulances.. no. Nothing like good old blind fear to get a girl moving. Hands wiping at her face, only smudging it, before she's on her feet. Felix.. where was Felix. She had to let him know she was okay before she ran like a witch from a mob of Puritans. "Felix!" Shouting, not realizing he probably can't hear her.

Nikki picks up on the whistle quickly, and points with unerring precision at its source. Of course, from this angle, she's pointing right at the building, and she's too far out to judge distance. She grimaces and starts running in that direction, heedless of whether the others follow her or not. To her credit, she's still keeping attentive for any rhythmic tapping or other sounds.

Scuffed, bruised, with trickles of blood running from ears and nose, and with a few strands of hair escaped from her braid - Caitlin is just tossing a last, freshly-cut length of rope onto a heap of similar fragments. Crowded in amidst the dumpsters and debris now littering the space behind the building separated from the bombed-out store by the alleyway she earlier ran down, the Goth is crouched beside a middle-aged Hispanic man. He and nine others of various races and styles of dress - for of them children - are all battered and apparently shell-shocked, sitting or lying on the ground, some crying. For her part, Caitlin looks both sore and very grim-faced.

Wesley follows Nikki, looking as they reach Caitlin. "Everyone alright?" he calls a little louder than intended, the damage to his ears not quite fixed yet.

Felix caught the point, and took off after Nikki, hesitating only slightly as something that sounded like it might have been his name reached him from the other side of that tunnel his hearing has become. He skids to a halt in front of the survivors, giving Caitlin a thumbs up before hunkering down in front of the kids. "Hey there." He says, his voice a touch loud because he can't hear himself, and a little strained because he's hurting but otherwise fine. "You guys ok? Got any injuries?"

The further she can get from the ambulances and the 'helpful' medic types, the better. Running after Felix as best she can, which is really sort of a limping, painful walk. Tug on his sleeve, rather than talking. Careful not to touch.

"Holy /shit/!" Nikki hisses when the tableau comes into view. Her eyes sweep the scene several times as she tries to take it in. After a few seconds gathering her wits, she whips off her scarf -- not like she needs it in the heat of the still-guttering fires -- and holds it out to Cait. "For the blood," she says, pointing first to her own nose, and then her own ears. She bristles only slightly as Felix edges past her, but come on, he's just checking on the kids! She goes to the first of the freed prisoners and offers her grimy hand. "Come on, there are ambulances out front. Can you walk?"

"Anyone who can't walk, raise your hand, I'll carry you to the ambulances," Wesley offers, looking about at the group, watching for raised hands. His voice is back to a normal volume, apparently his ears are better.

Caitlin rather wearily lifts her gaze from the just-freed former captives, Caitlin focuses upon Nikki and the other recent arrivals. Looking somewhat puzzled by Nikki's motions, she dabts at her nose with one hand, a surprised expression briefly crossing her face as she sees blood on her fingers. Then she accepts the scarf, draping it over her shoulder. Snapping shut the knife, she stows it in a zipped pocket built into the back of her running top at the base of her spine, and catches Nikki's eye. Holding up both fists, she then flashes both hands fully open, fingers splayed. Holding the pose an instant, she balls her fists again, then flashes her fingers once more. With a guilty, frustrated look, she then points to the bombed out building... and makes a slashing gesture across her throat.

The tug does finally get his attention, and Felix glances around at Alessia, mildly surprised ... and vaguely alarmed ... to have her get that close without his noticing. NOT normal for him, at all. "Hey." Just as well he doesn't see Cait's motions. The import behind them'd have him seeing red in record time. Most of the kids seem ok ... bumps and bruises seem to be the worst of it for them, with an odd cut or two thrown in for flavor, none of them serious. Still, they're more than a bit shocky, so Felix hoists one into his arms, and offers a hand to another. "C'mon guys. Let's get you checked out, make sure you're ok. You two, go with Wes, that guy there. He'll take you someplace safe." Deafened still, he can't hear the sirens, so he has no clue help is here, yet.

Alessia pulls something Caitlin-esque, nodding at Felix. Pointing at herself, then miming walking legs with her fingers. She's scared someone will try to force her to get checked out, and well.. Felix would understand why that would be bad, when he saw the medics, right? They touched a lot. A look at Caitlin, shrugging her shoulders. They'd have to try for coffee some other time. Preferrably with no bombs to interuppt regularly scheduled programming.

Oh, great. As if this is the time for charades. But the urgency in Caitlin's expression convinces Nikki that the circumstances demand extreme action. Glancing away from the small group, she points to a somewhat secluded area cut off from view by stacks of rubble, then offers the girl two fingers, held up together. "Vibrating artificial larynx?" she asks, as though offering peanuts on an airplane.

Wesley gathers up the kids, starting to carry them back to the street. "I'll be okay," he says softly. "Everything will be alright." Someone's got a paternal streak.

Blinking in surprise at Nikki's offer, Caitlin wearily pushes herself to her feet - a distinct wince visible as she straightens her back - and somewhat stiffly moves to where her friend pointed... though en route she does rather nervously glance in the direction the flashing lights, sirens, and increasing emergency service activity. Returning her gaze to Nikki, she sighs again, then rubs fiercely at her eyes to dash away a distinct brightening. Reaching behind her to delve into that zipped pocket, she pulls out a miniature notepad and the remnants of a now very broken pencil. Using the stub, she hastily scribbles down a note, writing far sloppier than usual. '30 victims. Bombs on each. Got out 10. 20 RIP.'

Felix nods at the charade, and, as they get closer to the front of the building, sees the lights. He winces a bit. "Go the other way ... should be an alley you can sneak down." He tells her. "But make sure you get checked out once you calm down."

For several second, Nikki can do little more than gape in disbelief and horror. "Oh... oh my god..." she barely breathes, taking an involuntary step back. No sooner does she do this, however, than she rushes forward again and tries to take Caitlin into her arms. "Oh my God. Oh my God. Cait... you did everything you could. You... oh Jesus..." She's shaking, her mind going a mile a minute. She was only a few yards away. She could have helped, if she'd known. She had no idea. All Nikki can do now is try to hold on to her friend and reassure her.

Alessia Shrugs. "Ah'll manage. Ah can go unnoticed mos' tha time. Ah'm okay, honest.. jus' a lil' banged up. But.. Ah.. " A glance at the lights, that terror plain. "Can' take tha'. Call ya later." Which was, in effect, her telling him no way in hell she was letting some doctor who didn't understand poke at her, which meant she didn't know any. Eyes closing a moment, shaking her head, before she's rubbing at her forehead. "Gonna go hide a while." Her control is in shards, and she knows it.

Wesley returns for more kids, lifting the smaller ones and calling the older ones to follow. "Come on, let's go talk to the nice paramedics," he soothes, his face not really matching the calm of his voice.

Caitlin had just started to rather awkwardly reach one hand towards Nikki when the younger girl stepped back in to embrace her. That hug is returned, swiftly and nearly bone-crushingly tightly, with the mute lower her head and sniffling loudly into Nikki's hair. Then she relaxes her grip, pulling back a touch and freeing one hand. Pointing at each of herself and Nikki, she then gestures firmly away from the swirling lights on the street, a couple of seconds of rapid finger-walking amplifying her silent suggestion.

Felix doesn't catch but maybe one word in ten ... lipreading isn't his specialty ... but he gets the general gist of it. "Go. And if you're having problems /call/ me. I know people who can patch you up, ok?" He continues on to the paramedics, drops the two kids he's carrying off, and proceeds to do a /very/ fast, complicated tango to avoid their clutches himself. "There's more wounded in the back." He tells them before he goes, and then gets while the getting is good. He's no more eager to be examined than Alessia is, if for entirely different reasons.

Alessia gives Felix a half smile, realizing there's only one person she really wants to call.. and she won't. She nods to Felix, though, before she too, is snaking her way off through the chaos. If only she knew what Felix meant, it might be a whole other ball of wax. As it is, she just wants to go home, and make the world go away.

As Cait releases Nikki, it's clear that the smaller girl shares a part of her anguish. She sets her jaw, though, and gives her best possible approximation of a businesslike nod. She ducks back into view in the alleyway, and calls somewhat quietly, "Hey, anyone /not/ mega pumped to end up on the news should come this way. We're getting out of here." There's a definite quaver to her voice, but determination in her expression. When she returns to the relative privacy of the nook she shares with Caitlin, she puts a bracing hand against the other girl's upper arm. "OK, let's get a move on," she says.

Wesley returns. "I'm finished playing hero," he says. "Though..." he looks at the building, a sad expression on his face. "Come on, let's go." He nears Nikki, whispering low enough that only her, and possibly Caitlin can hear. "You alright?" he asks.

Caitlin gives Wesley a warily - albeit also somewhat blearily - suspicious look as he approaches, before wiping at her eyes with her free arm and nodding to Nikki. She sets off determinedly away from the lights, apparently either confident of her navigational abilities or uncaring of where she ends up....

"Fantastic," Nikki answers Wes grimly. Normally this would be described as sarcasm, but the utter lack of humor in her expression makes it something else entirely. As she follows Cait, she adds, "He's a rancher. Xavierite." She's not sure how familiar the goth-girl is with her personal jargon, but she does want to make it clear that Wes isn't a security risk.

Wesley reaches out, putting a hand on Nikki's shoulder, squeezing it gently. He gives Nikki a weak smile before continuing on his way.

Caitlin looks as if her mood would normally have her comfortably out-distance the shorter Nikki, but her present stiff-backed limp hinders her gait enough that her more petite friend should have little difficulty in keeping up. While walking, she nods formally to Wes, sniffles sorrowfully, then looks to her other side and mimes knocking back a drink.

Nikki gives Wes a smile that mirrors his own, but then can't help but laugh at Caitlin's drink-mime. The laugh seems to bring her back a little bit closer to normalcy, and she does proper introductions: "Wes, this is Caitlin. Cait, this is Wesley. And Cait, I'm game any time."^r

Wesley nods to Caitlin. "Nice to meet you," he greets, shooting a slightly more genuine smile to the two girls.

Caitlin sniffles again, then nods once more, before awkwardly rolling her neck and shoulders in an obvious attempt to free up a few kinks. Sighing heavily, she leads the way in search of a quiet venue, there to make use of both washing facilities and fake ID at the bar....