I <3 New York (The Beast)

Oh god. The woman was scared! Scared enough to scream out of shock! What was this thing!? Who was it? And why? She didn't want to use her mutation. No, this woman (whose name happened to be Sarah Conner, by some cruel joke of the universe) would have to get her saving from someone else. If she used her mutation, it would be bad. 'Whole-chunk-of-the-city' erasing bad. She'd used her power once before, in the mountains, in a little cabin her father had used to own. The key word there was 'used to'. Nobody really owned it, now. It was hard to own rubble. Maybe at least he could claim ownership of the remnants of land, but really... So, she screamed. It was a very good scream, too! Several people heard it!

Of the several people who heard it, a certain Asian on a flying triangle was one. He messaged his partner on his radio, to let him know he'd heard something as he moved down and forward through the air on a course that directed him towards the direction from where he'd heard the sound.

Triangular pupils scanned the area, flicking over it inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter. As luck would have it, another scream caught his attention. He made a quick course correction, and there he was.

The Asian touched down on the concrete of the alley way, triangle shattering into several triangles that drifted up around him to hover by his right fist. After a moment, they merged to form an arm-length blue glove.

His eyes snapped on the big guy. The woman raked her long fingernails at the monster's face.

"Hey," Shin said. He pointed for emphasis. "Stop." That big guy had better stop.

With his hand around her neck like that, it really made it difficult to tell him she wasn't sure how long she could keep her explosion power in-check. Also, she wasn't sure how well it'd stay that way if, say, she was dead. That last idea was a hypothetical. There was no way he was stupid enough to do that. And if he did, it served him right.

The Asian had dealt with guys like this before, situations like this. Give a guy a hostage and he'd eat for a year. Teach a guy to take a hostage... and he would take hostages, that bastard. Shin didn't give him the pleasure of seeing him sweat. His mind was already formulating a plan to solve this situation, anyways. Already behind the big guy in the air above his head, small triangles were coalescing.

"I'm a police officer," He said gravely. And if the guy glanced at his belt, he'd see the badge pinned there, visible for all. "Now, as I said before. Stop."

The small triangles formed the shape of a handgun. A non-firing handgun, of course, but this guy didn't need to know that. The gun drifted down to press its nose into the small of his back.

"Seriously. Let her go."

Mutations are an interesting thing. Sometimes, you think you know how yours works. You think you have it all figured out. You know you can levitate spoons, so obviously you're a telekinetic, or maybe you're manipulating metal? But what you think isn't always how it turns out. Turns out, your power, stupid as it was, was restricted to spoons. The woman thought her power made things explode around her, and left her seemingly unscathed. She thought when she died, it would trigger, and there'd be nothing left of her, or anyone around. It turned out, she could only manipulate spoons.

The explosion happened around midfield, directly between the bony monster and the Asian cop. It wasn't as strong as she'd thought it would be. It didn't need to be. She hadn't completely understood how it had worked, anyways. Why have a power built around doing a great amount of damage, and putting your life in risk, when you can have a defense mechanism that can take you out of harms way, or even reverse the damage you took within the last 10 seconds? She'd had no idea her mutation was such a cheater. But that's life, isn't it? You don't always get what you want? Sometimes, you can only levitate spoons.

In the seconds after the explosion, things got hairy. Shin didn't have time to do much reacting to the toss, other than the knee-jerk defensive moves he'd trained for. There was no sudden welling of grief, no crippling loss of will due to self-doubt. There wasn't anything special. He just called back the gun-shaped shard construct and spread it into a glass-like blue wall, adding more from on his person, and from within. Some were rapidly created, and didn't hold up to the blast as well as others. They shattered, and the resulting psychic backlash felt like a punch in the face. He flew through the air, backwards. For a guy used to flying, he didn't make the falling with style look good.

A similar thing got to happen for the beast.

When the force of the explosion dissipated, spread out, a second later, it drew itself back in and snapped itself together, landing on the concrete in a heap of naked woman, neck not snapped, safe, for the moment. Cheating. Bending spoons.

The Asian hit the ground and his butt bounced twice. Ow. A groan escaped the unconscious woman's mouth.

The explosion, by the way, had been orange and red.

Two minutes is a lifetime, as far as explosions are concerned. Especially on the streets of New York. Someone had already called someone. The police were already on their way. Sirens could be heard wailing in the distance. An ambulance, squad cars. And the Asian's partner was already on the scene.

His goggles caught the light with a faint glint as Officer Schafer helped the Asian to his feet.

"The ambulance will be here within the next ten minutes," he said calmly. His hands gripped Shin's shoulder, steadying him where he stood.

What happened would have been a stupid question. His mind had already put that together. Boom de yada, boom. Suddenly for some inane reason, the Sci Fi channel's I Love The World music trailer was bouncing through his head. He grunted acknowledgement to his partner. He was a bit worse for the wear, but he wasn't deaf, and he wasn't dead. He could comprehend. And he could also see the beast getting up. With another grunt, he gesticulated. "Nnnn!"

Schafer's firearm lifted up in the air to train itself carefully on the monster. "Stay where you are." He suggested. "An ambulance is on its way, and can help you." He'd hate to have to make the poor ambulance crew's work load worse.

"You enjoy... getting thrown across alleys after snapping women's necks...?" Shin managed. What kind of person was this? That was crazy. He was worse than Giant's Bane. "We can help you," He restated. "It doesn't have to end the way you think it does."

The guy was planning to try and hurt them. He got that much. But he wasn't being entirely stupid about it. At least, not at the moment. That might come later.

Sure enough, from one end of the alley came sounds of movement. Shin wasn't sure what it was, but hoped it was backup. Maybe if they showed numbers, this beast would give up and stop trying to hurt people. He hoped ambulances were nearby, too. For the woman. And as an afterthought, he realized he might need one, too.

Schafer silently agreed with his partner, showing it all in his demeanor. The look on his face, in his eyes. The slight nod of his head spoke worlds.