Participants:
| Scene Title | <Superman vs. Wolverine> |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | <Marius and Scrivner respond to the same emergency in very different ways.> |
// A definition of urban sprawl and contradictory architecture, the Bronx spreads out over the mainland North of Manhattan, between Long Island Sound and the Hudson River. Diverse communities make their homes here, and many who live on Manhattan still travel here for sights such as the Botanical Gardens and places such as the Yankee Stadium. Urban decay does mark much of the Bronx, but pockets of it are untouched or redeveloped, still beautiful and new. This is not surprising, given the vast size of the area - which stretches out for miles.//
Marius is on his way back from a location shoot, he decided to walk, since it is a nice day and he doesn't have to be anywhere, he whistles to himself, his hands in his pockets as he traverses the Bronx in his three piece tv suit and tennis shoes.
Likewise walking along the pavement, dressed in his own suit, armed with a laptop bag and the slim, nylon case across his back, Rufus Scrivner glances at his wristwatch. The tall man is in a hurry to get somewhere, and so far, he's not had much luck in flagging down a taxi before some other git snatches it before he can reach the car. "Bloody Hell," he grumbles, striding along briskly.
Such a peaceful morning—until the window of a familiar apartment shatters and a familiar red head goes flying through the window to hit the ground. Though the wounds from her travel through the glass are already sealing it's clear that she's outnumbered. Three…absolutely gorgeous women? Come picking their way out of the glass behind her. Vette has her arm over her eyes and a grimace on her face, but two of the women grab her arms and pin them down for a second while she kicks wildly. One of those kicks slams into the gut of one of those women, doubling her over, but the other two stare intently into her eyes. Suddenly Vette goes white, shudders, and goes absolutely still beneath them, staring vacantly and not moving.
Marius blinks as four beautiful women have a fight in the street, normally he might consider just watching but he knows Vette and she seems to be on the bad side of this one. He walks toward the women, and clears his throat, "Excuse me…is this a private party or can anyone join the orgy?
Jerking his sleeve back down, Rufus stops in mid-grumble about being late when his head jerks up, drawn by the sound of the scream and the shatter of glass. His eyes widen. For a second or two he doesn't even notice Marius approaching, because he can see only the redhead being attacked. "Vette!" he bellows, breaking into a dead run. In mere seconds he's covered the distance, shouting, "Get off of her!"
The three women's heads snap up and abruptly they look /hideous/. Green snakes writhe from the tops of their heads. Sagging jowels and loose teeth sneer at the two men as they twist into imitations of smiles. Black eyes glitter from between liver spots and boils. The three women were identical blondes and now they are identical horrors. "Mary, Sheri, look," hisses the one in the middle.
"Very nice, Terri," hisses the one on the left. "Much nicer than this one." She's looking straight at Marius' eyes. "So handsome. Four months worth in him, I'll wager."
The one on the right smirks as she looks up at Rufus' eyes. "And this one's worth two, I'll wager. Very pretty. Very very pretty."
"Seven months for all of us," Terri declares, stepping one high heel over Vette's prone form, "Counting the homely dancer."
Marius watches her hiss and feels the pull of some supernatural gaze attack and shakes his head. "Now that isn't nice, I think you ladies need to be taught some manners." He draws his gun, and his arm is suddenly sheathed in a glowing tower shield, his entire body lights up and his face becoming more indisctinct <MY Eye ARE UP HERE> He then allows the light to explode over the area like a flash grenade making everyone looking at him look away slightly.
He skids to a halt when the man beside him explodes into brilliant light, making it difficult for him to see much of anything for a few seconds. The Englishman snarls beneath his breath as he winces, turning briefly away. First the stare of the medusa, then this. It takes every fibre of strength within him to slowly reach up, slipping a longsword from the case he carries across his back, while he drops the rest of what he'd been carrying. "I think not," he growls. And then as he brandishes his sword, he roars, "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!"
Things start happening all at once. Terri staggers back, flailing wildly and trying to punch at Marius but missing entirely. Mary snarls as she swings a hard fist towards the source of that light, intending to smack him in the jaw. Sherri turns to Scrivner, who, after all, is still yummy if only slightly less so, and attempts to palm strike him in the throat in a way that attempts to drive her perfectly manicured…nasty talons dripping with green gook…right into his throat.
Marius takes the little love pats from the girls, he shakes his head, "Ladies please, One at a time…" He sees the green gook on thier talons and he fires at Sherri, the one attacking Scrivner, his gun firing pure bullets of sun light at the creature. He goes for a shot in the leg, not trying to kill her as much as disable her.
Coming up close, Rufus remains aware of the Glowing Superman over there, though his identity is escaping him right this second. Not that it matters. He's got a faceful of Medusa-wanna be trying to claw him up. He shifts his body and instinctively blocks her wrist, sending her green-oozing fingers raking along his shoulder, where she does nothing save tear a rent through the fabric. Yet /another/ suit ruined. His tailor is going to be overjoyed at the additional business. "Oh, that was a mistake," he snarls as he bares his teeth. While Marius shoots at her leg, he draws back a step and aims a hard, vicious strike with his sword at Sherri's neck, aiming to cleanly decapitate her.
The medusae screams as the bullet pierces her leg, and she half whirls around to look at Marius—just in time for Scribner's sword to bite into her neck. Her head goes rolling, flies through the air, and lands somewhere in Vette's bedroom as the body falls.
"You killed our sister!" Mary shrieks, and she abandons Marius to /launch/ herself at Scribner, talons flashing as she attempts to punch his solar plexus with them fully out and flexed. Terri looks like she's maybe ready to book it now and spins to try to get around Marius—but she can't help but try one hard snarling swipe to his back as she does.
Marius levels his pistol on Terri as she tries to run, "Stop and surrender, and I promise you will live, flee and you die, make your choice." He looks at Mary possibly trying to make the offer include her, though her fate is more in Scrivner's hands.
She gets him. Rufus' eyes widen and then narrow at the shock of pain lancing through his body. Blood seeps through his shirt and waistcoat, and smears of green poison drip from his skin. That /hurt./ It doesn't stop him though. The man hardens his resolve and apparently decides mercy is not on his agenda today. "And I've only just begun!" he snarls in answer, lifting his arms and drawing back his sword, aiming a strike at /her/ neck.
The shot rings out as Terri attempts to flee. Her body twists as it falls, blood spreading out from the wound Marius just put in her thigh. She lets out a cry of frustration and fear, clamping her hands to her leg. She resumes the appearance of a truly gorgeous innocent 19 year old blonde woman. "Please…"
Rufus' sword does not /quite/ take Mary in the throat or decapitate her, but it does slide right down her collar bone, biting down and cutting into a wound so deep that she looks dizzy. Abruptly she seems to decide she's out of her league too. She attempts to start running away by leaping through the broken window back into Vette's bedroom, shouting, "HELP! THESE PSYCHOS ARE TRYING TO KILL ME!"
Marius closes the distance to where she is downed, and holds out his pistol, leveled on Terri, he motions for Rufus to go after Miss Mary if he wants "I told you to surrender, why do they never surrender? He looks at Terri with narrowed hard eyes, "Now maybe you can explain yourself…and I will know if your lieing, you lie this is a waste of time, and I don't offer mercy a third time.
Scrivner is not paying much attention to Marius. He's vaguely aware of the guy shooting her and has assumed the man's handling the bitch well enough. But he goes after Mary anyway. Snarling, he leaps over Vette's downed body and chases after the medusa with fury in his eyes, blade sweeping back. "Go back to Hell!" he roars, and this time, he aims to stab her right in the back, hoping to pierce right through to the heart.
Scrivner's sword tears into her back, and the medusae jerks, her eyes going wide and sightless. She slides down his blade, quite, quite dead, her mouth hanging open. One by one the snakes growing out of her head close their eyes. The head that's already in the room looks much the same.
Terri holds up her hands. "I just needed her eyes. Even one eye. Or your eye. Can I please have an eye? Oh please. I don't want to be ugly. Or perhaps you can help me find the Ladies. They helped me be beautiful. Please, the world is so cruel to ugly people, you don't understand, you're beautiful. You have all the advantages of the beautiful people." Artful tears shimmer down her eyes.
Marius says, "And just what are you going to do with the eyes? How will they help you?""
To aid in getting the body off of his sword, Scrivner callously sets his foot on her back and kicks her off. Then he bends, using a fold of her shirt to wipe the sword clean. He whirls then, striding back to Vette's fallen body, and he sinks down to kneel beside the young lady. "Vette? Vette, are you all right?" He rests a hand on her shoulder, then bends to slip an arm beneath her head. When he looks up, at Marius and Terri, he snarls, "You're going to let her /live?/"
Marius nods slowly, "I will make you a deal…I will give you what you need, but you hunt no more, you come to me when you need it, and you bring me any information you find, you work for me now, and I will take care of you, are you willing to do that?
Vette's eyes flutter open at Scrivner and she suddenly grips his shoulder, clearly caught in some nightmare of terror. It's an improvement that she can move, but her face is white and sweat is sliding down her cheeks. That said recognition sparks in her eyes, and she seems to figure things out quickly. "Keep talking," she whispers hoarsely, the words coming out with painstaking slowness. "It helps."
"Kind, handsome man," Terri whines, nodding her head. "You will bring me eyes? The eyes of the beautiful to eat?"
Marius pulls out his pocket knife and steels his will, then cuts out his own eye dropping it into her hand. There is no blood, no scaring, within moments the eye regrows in it's socket he blinks a couple times as the vision clears, a little tickle of blood at his lips where he bit it.
Rufus' eyes are now on Marius, though he holds Vette a little more tightly. The man falls silent for a moment or two, just /listening,/ looking more or less ready to inflict a little more pain if the chance presents itself. He exhales quietly, then he murmurs quietly down to Vette, keeping the words low. And when the man cuts out his own eye? He grimaces and looks briefly away, shifting his hand to block Vette's face from catching a glimpse of that.
Okay, that was just disgusting as Hell.
Vette senses Scrivner whispers lots of sweet nothings. Really gentlemanly sweet nothings.
Vette slowly starts to come to, and when Rufus shields her face she doesn't even try to look. "I'm okay now," she whispers, smiling at him bravely. But she makes no attempt to move out of his arms. "They just — when they looked at me, something happened — in my head—"
Terri moves like a snake. She snatches at that eye and devours it hungrily, the blood running down her chin as she all but crams it into her mouth. She chews like a child and swallows, then relaxes. Then she gives an utterly coquettish smile. "Of course I'll work for you." She apparently is less into the family thing than the dead Mary is.
Marius says, "Know this…you hurt anyone, you cause havok or chaos, you turn to evil, and our deal is off, as long as you help others, and obey me, you have a ready supply, given freely with no need to fight. Is that a deal?""
“They were medusae, I think," Rufus quietly says to the lady. He reaches up to sheathe his sword across his back, and with his second arm now free, he slips his other arm beneath her. The man lifts her up and stands on his feet, cradling her across her lower back and beneath her knees. He's still watching Marius with Terri, arching an eyebrow and looking ever so sceptical of the entire deal.
"They said they were here to see my roommates and then they all looked at each other and the next thing I know…" Vette grins sheepishly. "I think I'm the worst hero ever." She wraps her arms around Rufus' neck and rests her head on his shoulder. "Are you okay?" She is justtuning out the entire Marius making a deal with the thing deal, but thenVette has a talent for tuning things out.
"Yes, yes, I swear it!" Terri says quickly. "I will do everything you ask. This is a good deal. A very good deal." She wets her lips, and looks nervously at Rufus, but since his sword is up she just continues to hold her wounded leg.
Marius leans down and begins bndadging her leg with a handkerchief, doing basic first aid. "My bullets won't leave any slugs in the leg, so it shouldn't be too hard to heal up. You may be limping a little while, sorry…but you should have just surrendered when I asked you too." He looks over at Vette, "I think you need to go apologize to her. Why did you pick her by the way? Random chance or did someone give you her address?
Scrivner's grip tightens on the woman, and his eyes narrow at the medusa at the suggestion that the thing /speaks/ to Vette. "I'm… in some pain, but I'll be quite all right in a few more minutes." His shirt front's soaked with blood, but it's not a patch that's grown any. The bleeding appears to have stopped beneath his clothes. He doesn't interrupt Marius and Terri, but he's listening quite intently.
Terri sniffs. "Her roommates are far less troublesome. I don't /want/ to apologize to her. She /kicked/ me. And she broke one of my ribs, see?" She makes it a point to pull up her shirt, not /quite/ revealing anything she shouldn't, but almost. "We came because we met her roommates at a party. They're really pretty. She's just only /kind/ of pretty. But she was the only one home, and she does have /two/ eyes. We could have split them."
Vette murmurs, "I'm not hurt anymore either. If you're getting tired you don't have to hold me." But her arms tighten around his neck. She /likes/ it.
Marius says, "She was doing what she had to do to survive, just like you were, now come on..no hard feelings? This is time to turn over a new leaf, a new lease on life without having to hunt and kill."
"Enough, Forest," Rufus states, his voice cold and sharp. His pale eyes narrow dangerously on the medusa. "The thing is a monster. She /sold/ her humanity, and quite frankly, mate, you're insane for the mercy you're extending to her. Mark my words, she'll betray you. I do not want that thing speaking to Miss Adams."
Terri gives the Child of the Aesir a long look and gulps. She stands up, limping a little, and says, "He doesn't want me to. Please, please can I go now?" She gives Marius these biiiiig liquid green eyes. "Please? I'll be good. I won't even need anything for four more months thanks to you being so nice." She even goes so far as to bat her eyelashes.
Vette stares at this thing and whispers something to Scrivner, looking bemused.
Vette whispers "Ok, I'm disturbed on a number of levels now." to Scrivner.
Marius gives her a phone number, not his normal one, but a special unlisted prepaid phone that doesn't have his name connected to it. "Call me if you learn anything that you think I might be interested in, or if you need anything, or if you just need someone to talk you out of doing something stupid…ok?"
Scrivner snorts softly, making no attempt to hide the contempt. His eyes linger on the medusa and the weatherman, but eventually he turns his eyes away to take a look at their surroundings. Shattered glass, dead bodies on the ground. He exhales tightly through his teeth. "This is not going to be pleasant, trying to explain /this/ to the police."
Terri takes the phone number. Then she /books/ it.
Vette stares around too and says, "I'm thinking…my name's not on the lease and I don't really want to explain it. That's what I'm thinking right now. Here, put me down, sweetheart. Thanks for saving me." She kisses his cheek and says, "It's a good thing I live light. I can just grab stuff and get out of here."
Marius walks over and nods, "If we can not have Mercy and Compassion, then what makes us actually right? Justice may be blind, but I am not, and everyone deserves a second chance…though not a third, if she is dumb enough to throw this away I will end her myself.
"You cannot try a wolf for murder, slap him on the wrist, and say do not do that again, expecting he will learn his lesson," Rufus snaps, as he gently rests the lady upon her feet. "It is in his very nature to hunt and kill for his survival. Make no mistake, Forest. This is a war. She's cast her lot with the ones who would destroy our fathers and mothers." The man shakes his head again, then he bends to retrieve his laptop bag from the ground, "Miss Adams, do you need any help?"
Marius looks up, "Give me a couple bedsheets if you will, I will make sure the bodies get a proper burial, though I want to check in with Simone on someting before I do…”
Vette takes a battered old bag from her closet and starts throwing clothes into it. "I have some shoes on the top shelf, Rufus, can you get those for me?" she asks softly. She stares at Forest. "A pr—a what? Mr. Forest, I really can appreciate your desire to do the right things, but the cops are going to show up and they're not going to see titan spawn, they're going to see a couple of dead bodies. What are you going to do, stick them in your car? Are you nuts?"
Marius says, ""Bodies mean an investigation, and we would prefer to avoid that"" He walks jumps up to the broken window and walks inside, looks for some sheets, then begins wrapping the bodies up. Once that is complete he throws the bundle, two relatively light women a load, but not an over load and then rises into the air, "I will take care of the mess.""
"He's right, Vette, on that count at least," Rufus quietly states. "If the bodies cannot be found, this cannot be labelled a homicide. It is a missing persons case." He tilts up his head to watch the man rise into the air, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "Come on, Miss Adams. Get your things. You're too much trouble to leave alone for an extended period of time. You should go somewhere else, at least for a little while."
Vette nods and just pauses to mop up the blood with a shirt. She shoves the shirt into the bathroom sink and turns on the cold water to get rid of all the blood, and it goes since it's fresh. "I don't know where I'll stay," Vette admits. "I can't afford much. This place was great for the monthly rental price." She sounds forlorn and tense.
"At the risk of sounding terribly forward, Miss Adams, you are welcome to stay at my flat for awhile. It's not terribly spacious or grandiose, but given that I spend most of my time out of it, you should remain largely undisturbed," Scrivner says with a shrug. He watches the lady as he stands about in her apartment, hands in the pockets of his suit jacket.
Vette perks up. "Really?" She smiles at him as she finishes grabbing her stuff. "I'd like that." She clears her throat, blushing. "I um. I didn't want to assume you'd want me um. Moving into your um. House." She's turning as red as her hair. "I mean I don't um. I don't want to um. Scare you um. Away?" Her hair hides her face as she grabs some toiletries as well. "Should I call in a um. A vandalism? Just file a police report?"
He draws in a long breath and exhales it, and he reaches into his jacket pocket for his cellphone. Speaking of business… he forgot he's now /very/ late to his appointment. Damn it. "Were I you, I'd call it in as a vandalism and let your roommates know as well. You weren't here when this happened, you don't know what's going on, and you're afraid to stay here, so you'll be staying with a friend for awhile."
"That works," Vette says, pulling out her own cell phone. She starts making calls as she zips up her bag, and she gives Scrivner a thumbs up that she's ready to go. She figures he's just tense about the attack so doesn't read anything else into his actions or mood, taking everything at face value.
While she makes phone call, so does he, regrettably postponing his first and second appointments. He figures he's not going to get to where he needs to be before the second one's due. Then he calls for a cab. If they can at least be taken back to a point where he can grab mass transit, they'll be good to go. Scrivner closes up his phone and slips it back into his pocket, sighing peevishly. "Well, that's done. I'm ready whenever you are, my dear."
"I'm ready," Vette says, following him out. Through the door, rather than through the busted window. "I'm sorry. I've disrupted your day it seems." Not that it was really her fault, but she still feels the need to apologize to Rufus. Fate probably had something to do with the whole thing and it's put her at the centre of matters, after all.
He glances over his shoulder, and he smiles faintly. "Think nothing of it. I just regret I can't spend more time with you after this, but I /have/ to be back in the office by noon. Still, I can make it up to you. You'll join me for dinner tonight? It's not quite the date we agreed upon - which I still wish to keep, of course - but …." He shrugs. "Two dinner dates in one evening isn't excessive, is it?"
Vette giggles. "I think it's lovely. I was supposed to go over to Simone's to um, get some girl help for our date in any event so maybe I should stop by there first if you have to go back to the office." He certainly didn't see any piece of clothing that she owned that cost more than 10$. Easily less, in some cases. She touches his arm. "I'm enchanted by going out with you, so I don't think it's excessive at all."
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