Night was a time that was slowly beginning to estrange Danica from her daily life. Atop a thirty story she sat on the edge of the roof looking out over the city. New York truly was the city that never slept, even at this hour it was a cacophony of noises and sounds. Down below the red blue of tail lights could be seen amid the brief but spontaneous shouts of angry drivers. The loud shrill roar of a 747 could be heard as it came in on approach. In a nearby building the silhouette of two people could be seen against a lone office light. With a smirk Danica watched them, from the animated movements it looked like they were arguing about something.

The feel of the breeze against her face was cold, but refreshing at the same time. From this vantage point she had a wonderful view of the city. There were times that being small was an advantage, such as sneaking through a building to get to the roof. This wasn't the first time she'd snuck onto this particular roof for the view. It also helped Danica put her life into perspective and it was becoming clear that her abilities were no longer something that could be ignored. Sooner or later her secret would be discovered and it might involve self-defense. If that happened it would be best if Danica knew how to fight back.

Standing up she began to walk back and forth along the lip of the roof looking down at all the people below. The more Danica thought about the human race the darker her mind became. More than once she'd seen news reports about anti-mutant activist groups attacking innocent people on the street for no other reason than looking different. She also thought about how some seven decades ago a European dictator had followed that same philosophy. By doing so he had drawn the world into a war resulting in more than fifty-million people being killed.

With a sneer she pointed a finger down at the ground acting like she was shooting bolts of kinetic energy at the people below. It was humans who had done this to Danica, and humans that would no doubt try to kill her if they found out the truth. From here they looked so small and insignificant, so easy to just... erase. There were days she just ignored them and tried to get on with life, and others where she wanted to kill every homo-inferior she laid eyes on. The only exception to that being her parents.

More than anything she was worried about them finding out. Even after being kidnapped and experimented on, they didn't know the truth. The only thing she would tell her parents was that she didn't want to talk about it, and they didn't push her. The events had been so traumatic that there were gaps in her memory. Things so horrific that her mind chose to bury them, to forget what had happened, yet even then not everything had disappeared. With her mind focused on the horrors of the past Danica failed to notice a security guard walking up behind her.

“Hey, what are you doing up here?” a voice said. When the halogen flashlight flooded her field of view it triggered a memory. Instead of a man holding a flashlight her mind saw a floodlight and heard the sound of a deep voice booming over a microphone. A sudden rush of fear welled up inside of Danica and she reacted, throwing an arm forward a bolt of kinetic energy struck the man in the chest. To the sound of fabric against stone he slid across roof coming to a stop near the small building that housed the stairs leading to the roof. Almost as fast as it surfaced, Danica pushed the memory aside as the man staggered to his feet.

At this point she was thoroughly enraged at being forced to relieve the memory and saw the man reaching for a tazer pistol strapped to his side. Overwight and dressed in dark slacks with a light shirt he was the poster child for rent-a-cop. Jumping down as he fumbled with the button on the strap, Danica scowled at him. “You pathetic homo-inferiors think you're the masters of this world. You treat everyone and everything else that's different like garbage. Not this time, not with me you won't.”

When the guard finally managed to free the weapon he started to draw it. By this time Danica already had a hand drawn into a claw and held slightly behind her. The energy collecting grew in size, and when the guard tried to raise his arm, she threw hers forward. The energy let out a loud 'CRACKT!' and struck him in the chest. The guard was thrown back off his feet and over the edge of the building. It wasn't hard to miss the sound of his scream fading further and further away, until it was suddenly muted by the cold hard thud of the ground below. Walking over to the edge she placed both hands on the lip of the building and looked over the edge.

“Thanks for ruining the view loser,” Danica said. This would no doubt draw unwanted attention and she knew a quick exit would be needed. Walking over to the other side of the building she looked over the edge at another building ten stories shorter, that was close enough to create an alleyway between them. Without hesitation she jumped up and over. Looking down at the ground as to rose up to meet her, Danica began drawing energy into her legs, then roughly ten feet from impact she fired a blast of energy straight down. The counter-force slowed her descent, but the impact was still a pretty hard. Glancing back up Danica made a mental note that 300 feet was pushing it on stopping power, she'd either need to reduce the height, or fire off more than one blast if there was time.

New York City is a city that never sleeps, the glaring, glowing lights pushing away the darkness almost as well as the sun's rays. Because of this many of its residents enjoyed being out at all hours of the day and night, and they see everything, or at least have heard everything. If a New Yorker hadn't seen or heard of it, there was a good chance it was either new or fake. The city's high population of mutants only reinforced that way of thinking.

That said, two bright flashes of light, orange light at that, from the roof of one of the city's many skyscrapers was odd. If the flashes had come from ground level, he probably would have ignored it, he might have ignored the bursts of light anyways, if they hadn't been orange. Red, blue, white, even green Kaz was familiar with, and use to, but who used orange?

All of this ran through Kaz's mind before the screaming started.

That was it, his curiosity was peaked now, he wanted to find out what was going on. Even as she took off towards the building his eyes tracked the path of the falling person. He felt nothing for the doomed person, nothing but annoyance. No one was going to save them, there was no point in screaming like they were, they should face death head on, literally. Aim straight at the ground, get as much speed as they could before they hit. There was no reason for him to think it, but Kaz imagined it was a human falling to their death, sent their by a mutant.

It was possible that Kaz could have saved the person, if he had focused on speed, but he was getting use to his current form and it was not exactly built for such extreme speed. Even if it were built for that speed, to save the person, he'd have to go out of his way to do it. Kaz was heading towards the building's other side. Before he reached the building he leaped in the air, landing on the side of another building and launched off of it, gaining even more height. By the time he time he actually reached the building the orange flash had come from he was halfway to the top.

Kaz missed the figure jumping from the roof he was heading towards as his leaps up the side covered 20ft each time. He didn't miss the burst of orange from the alley below him. Kaz stopped his upwards movement and turned where he perched against the side of the building. Checking the distance he realized the jump would be cakewalk, the problem would be the landing. He didn't want to land that hard and give himself away.

”Well, damn.” Aiming as best he could, he leaped at the corner of the building across from him, trying to catch the solid corner. He did. And it worked, for a heartbeat. Unfortunately, his momentum carried him into the glass next to him and through it. He had smashed through what seemed to be some sort of office space, maybe a file room. Kaz stood up and brushed glass dust from himself. 'It almost worked.' He thought to himself. 'Gonna have to get use to that, I'm too compact like this.'

Moving to the broken window, kicking and pushing things away from him, and through other windows, Kaz grabbed the solid corner of the building and swung out into the air. Once all four limbs were latched on, he scaled the building. The window he had smashed through had been halfway to the ground.

Kaz leaped the last 30ft or so to the ground, skidding to a halt in the shadows. Moving out of the shadows, one could see the creature he was. His head was long and triangular, the lower jaw jutting out just a bit past the upper, this cause a few of the obviously sharp, thick teeth to show in a sort of twisted smile. His brows were thick and heavy, covering and protecting long eyes that were able to look ahead and to the sides easily. His nose, or what passed for a nose, was covered in what looked like a plate of bone, though it was just his skin pulled tightly across the bone. Four horns jutted out from his head, two right above his brows, and two from the sides.

Kaz's neck was a bit shorter than would normally be, folds of skin covered by segmented armored plates protected the back and sides of his neck. The armored plates continued down his back, covering most of his body, arms, legs and tail. Along the length of his back were a number of long sharp spines, that laid flat against his back most of the time, but could when he wanted them to, just straight out. They were slightly curved, the inner curve coming to a blade-like edge. His back was covered with other, smaller spines that acted much like the larger ones, though they were there to keep things from hanging onto his back.

His shoulders were protected by a large, rough, dense plate, much thicker than the rest of the armor plates. The outer edge's were sharp and serrated, terminating in a spike towards the top, angled outward so Kaz could never accidentally get jabbed by it. Where an elbow would normally end, Kaz's seemed to continue in a thick spike. Following the line of the spike brought the eye to his hands. They were hands, tipped in wickedly clawed talons, all of his knuckles and the backs of his hands were covered with a miniature version of his shoulder plate.

His chest was thin and brawny. It was obviously protected by the same material as his back, but in a way that allowed for a lot more freedom of motion, while still allowing Kaz to show off his physique.

A large spike jutted out and up from his thigh moving with his leg. It seemed to be similar to the ones on his back and in fact they were also able to lay flat or stick out straight, or any angle in between. The plating flowed down his thigh, covering all but the inner thigh. The knee was covered in the same manner as his shoulder. His feet had one less digit than a human foot. Each of the four toes ended in the same talons as his hands, the knuckles were covered in the same hard, spiked plating.

In addition to the plating, Kaz had three rows of small spikes extending all the way to the end. At the end of his tail was a large spiked ball, though most of the spikes laid flat, some, near the base of the ball stuck out straight. There was one large philips screwdriver shaped spike at the very end of his tail, the edges of it were notched and serrated meant to slice its way in and tear its way out.

This was the form Kaz wore as he came out of the shadows of full concealment. His mottled gray and black skin, interspersed with ragged non-uniform lines of deep blue, reflected almost no light, letting him blend in to the night as easily as a shadow. Like any shadow, light was his enemy. His coloring did nothing to hide him in the light.

Kaz noticed a form standing a ways away from him. This had to be the mutant. Kaz moved toward the figure, staying low, walking on all fours. He didn't both trying to hide his approach, he was sure this person heard his from above and his landing.

When he closed to within 30ft Kaz stopped, crouched, and then stood up. From the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, he was a little over six feet long, but standing up Kaz barely reached five feet. Kaz's red eyes seemed almost lambent as he looked at the mutant. She, and he was sure it was a she, was short, shorter than he was currently. For a moment he thought she was a child, but it only took a few more moments to realize that wasn't true. 'A midget. First mutant midget I've ever seen, or heard of.' Head tilting to the side, ”Didn't think mutants could be midgets” He was speaking to himself, in a soft, quiet voice.

Kaz glanced from the mutant to the roof of the building. In a voice deeper than normal, ”Nice jump. Do you normally shove humans over the edges of skyscrapers?” There was no condemnation in his tone, in fact it was in the same tone that he'd ask someone passing him by, 'How's the weather?'

The last thing that Danica expected to hear was someone address her so soon after landing. The voice came in the form of a question for which she was in no mood. Still fighting to suppress some very horrific memories her attitude was about as foul as they came. In the process of turning she cut loose with a blast of kinetic energy that went wide, sparking off a brick wall, missing Kaz by some distance. It wasn't meant to actually strike the young man, merely a warning shot in his general direction. Upon facing him, Danica began to charge another shot, thinking it some annoying bystander butting his nose into her business. That all changed when she got a good look at Kaz, he by no means appeared human and she could count the number of mutants personally met on one hand.

Allowing the charge to dissipate Danica's head tilted to one side, taking in the curious individual in front of her. Normally a sight like Kaz would have scared her senseless, but still angry enough to kill someone else there was no fear in her eyes. Without saying anything Danica walked over to him for a closer inspection. She wasn't sure if he was suppose to look like a rhino, a beetle, or a cross between something else entirely. “Only those who piss me off, you planning to piss me off there, spike?” With that the fingers on Danica's right hand flexed as an aggressive warning. Although she had no desire to fight Kaz, after seeing some of the mutant extremists on television, one could never be too careful.

Despite her intense hatred for most humans in general, mutants were one of few groups of people in the world she didn't hate. They represented the select few that might actually be able to understand Danica, not only her situation, but the persecution faced simply for being different. Kaz didn't appear to be aggressive in stance, but his physical appearance surely looked dangerous. As paranoid as Danica was it didn't take much to set her off, a simple movement slightly larger than an unconscious gesture and she leaned back causing another audible thump.

Shot straight back ten-feet by another blast from her legs, Danica moved with considerable speed. Aiming to come to a sliding halt on both feet, she slid back, fell, tumbled once, then quickly jumped back up. At this point she was a mixture of excitement, anger, adrenaline, and curiosity. After another moment of standing there, she straightened up finally noticing that Kaz wasn't that much taller than she was. Standing between two buildings in a trash strewn alleyway was the last place Danica thought to meet another mutant. The air had a slight chill to it causing her breath to become visible. Dressed in a pair of black slacks and a thick jacket of matching color she arched a brow slightly.

“Exactly who are you and what do you want?” Danica said.

Kaz had not expected the woman to fire at him. When the shot came Kaz didn't both moving, didn't flinch at all. One of his eyes tracked the shot as it struck the bricks, the other one stayed focused on the mutant. He didn't know if she missed on purpose, if she was a bad shot, or if her surprise and sudden turn caused the shot to go wild. It didn't really matter in any case. From the damage to the bricks Kaz doubted he would have been phased by the blast. He was curious why she had shot first and so readily. Maybe she was on edge, or scared?

”Only those who piss me off...”

Tilting his head a bit as he looked at her, he decided she was scared. She had to be. He heard way to much false bravado in her words, in her tone. She was trying to hard. Was she trying to be intimidating? It was kinda cute. Kaz laughed and grinned, ”Well, I guess I'm in luck then huh, since I'm neither human, nor are we atop a skyscraper.” Making a tilting motion of his head at her hand, ”You can quit that. If I was interested in hurting you, or killing you, I would have done it already, shorty.”

Kaz closed his eyes, tilted his head up and to the side, effectively looking away from the woman, as he used one of his finger claws to scratch an itch on his neck, just behind the corner of his jaw. There was a low 'thrump' of a sound and Kaz opened and eye. He saw her shoot backwards, land and fall, rolling until righted herself. Kaz could not stop himself from smirking, maybe it had been coincidence that her retreat happened just when he had an itch and scratched it. 'Jumpy, literally.'

Kaz didn't move as he watched the woman, in fact his stillness was almost unnatural. Until she moved Kaz had stared at her, the red of his eyes seeming to glow brighter as his attention focused on her. It was the attention a hunter, animal or human, gives to things in its territory. There was no evil or ill intent in the look, but it none the less let it be known they were watching, that they were aware, and that life and death were theirs to give or take.

”Exactly who are you and what do you want?”

When the woman spoke Kaz moved, he yawned. Large, loud, and oddly like a rumbling truck, but it was obviously a yawn. ”Since you didn't,” Kaz was interrupted as another yawn took him and he felt the need to stretch. Going to all fours began stretching in a similar way a cat would, the spines on his back, legs, and tail changed position and quivered for a moment before relaxing back into place when he sat back on his haunches. ” Since you didn't introduce yourself first, which is only polite, you can call me 'Spike'. It is quite appropriate, considering...” Kaz lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers, the knuckle spikes visible. ”I don't want anything really. I had been putting this new body through a test drive when I saw something odd. I wanted to find out what that was, so I came here. Now I've found out what it was. You.” Grinning, ”My turn. Who are you, and why are you so violently twitchy? I won't ask about the human, they probably did something stupid, like always. I'll have to remember the skyscraper thing. I bet the landing was really messy.”

Danica didn't know how to react to Kaz, he was unusually calm where most of other mutants on the street seemed jumpy and quite paranoid. It was obvious that he didn't intend to kill her or he probably would have, and there likely wouldn't be anything she could have done about it. From the look of things Kaz had considerably more control of his abilities than she did, being unable to even fire in a straight line most of the time. That was something else that was starting to really bother Danica, her lack of control. Had Kaz meant real harm she would likely be dead right now. Still not sure of how to handle the situation, and trying to suppress unpleasant memories, it caused her left eye to twitch slightly.

For a moment Danica appeared to not quite be there, in that her mind was miles away, then just as quickly she snapped back to the present. She didn't much care for his gaze, but there was little that could be done about it. Then there was the question presented by the young man. There was a part of Danica that wanted to tell him to piss off, yet another wanted to answer the question. At first she didn't know why, then it occurred that he might actually understand her situation, assuming that he cared in the first place. Danica couldn't even talk to her own parents about the situation out of fear of rejection. She'd offered some vague questions over the diner table about the 'mutant situation', only to learn neither were very fond of them. That left her out in the cold more than ever before.

“My name is Danica, and as to why I'm so jumpy, are you serious?” Danica said, leaning forward with her hands on both hip. “Have you seen what those homo-inferiors do to people like us? You're pretty ballsy walking around like some sort of rhino... porcupine... thingamajig.”

Taking a moment to rub her forehead she walked around for a moment, head shaking. “Let's not forget on top of being one of the most hated and hunted things on the planet, I'm four feet tall! Oh yeah, let's get into a fight, round one, PUNT!”

There was a lot of stress in Danica's voice and body language, causing her to pace around the alley. With her anxiety at all new levels she pointed a finger at Kaz, “That worthless lousy human tried to draw a weapon on me, he got what he deserved!”

“Oh my god, I must sound like a total idiot, standing here ranting and rambling in front of a total stranger,” Danica said. While continuing to talk the sound of police sirens in the distance could be heard. This caused her attention to snap to front and center. Like a bolt of lightning she took off through the exit to the opposite end of the alleyway and into an old abandoned building that was scheduled for demolition. From there with both hands on the edge of a broken window, she peer out as nothing more than a nose and pair of eyes. Part of Danica's mind was quite aware of what arrest would mean, while another was darting about in every direction. At this point in time she was becoming rather scatter-brained from all of the memories, thoughts, and the situation.

“Hurry up, come on!” Danica said, motioning Kaz over. Peering over the edge of the window she looked around trying to see which way the police were coming from. As soon as the red and blues appeared at the end of the street to a sound of a shrill cry, she ducked down behind the wall. Now huddled down with her knees under her chin, Danica seemed extremely frightened. Not only was she worried about being outed as a mutant, being arrested was almost unimaginable to the young woman. She was becoming something of an erratic basket case, who was having a considerable amount of trouble controlling both thoughts and emotions. They were welling up like a maelstrom and Danica was swinging between angry and scared almost randomly.

Kaz was surprised the woman seemed take what he said into consideration. From her belligerent attitude he had expected her to blow him off. She didn't loose the attitude, but it did get a bit more tolerable. ”Well Danica...Danica...Never heard that name before,” Kaz shrugged, ”It's not ballsy to walk around like this when this is what I am,” Kaz wasn't one to lie normally and it wasn't entirely a lie, but he didn't exactly feel up to give away his identity just yet. ”I can't hide it, so why should I try?”

Kaz moved forward towards her, slowly, almost in a prowl. ”I know exactly what those humans do to us.” There was so much disgust and contempt in that word that it twisted his face, his lips peeling back from his teeth. ”All the more reason not to hide, to show them I cannot be broken, subdued, or beaten.”

Kaz stopped moving when Danica began to pace around. Sitting back he looked up at her, his head tilted to the side. ”If I understand this right, you were on top of the building, where you weren't suppose to be, and you got caught. That was a guard wasn't it. And then you blasted his now splattered ass over the edge.” Kaz made a pensive face before shrugging it all away, ”My advice for next time, don't push him over the edge, just explode his head or something. You'll draw less attention to yourself that way, if your worried about-” Kaz cut himself off as he turned his head from her.

He heard the sirens and figured they had been called because of what Danica had done. By the sound of it, they would be close enough to investigate within a few minutes. When he looked back he realized the woman had been saying something. Kaz smirked a bit when Danica noticed the sirens and bolted. Kaz always felt a little naked, exposed, when he didn't have his exceptional hearing, which was why he kept it even in this 'Spike' form.

Kaz followed the woman, at a more leisurely pace, not feeling the need to run. If the cops found and caught him, he'd be able to take care of them easily, or at least that's what he assumed. It wouldn't be the best way to test the form out, but it would work. The main reason for taking on a new form, one that was almost completely different from his normal self, was so he could do things and not draw attention to himself or his business interests.

Though Kaz was perfectly fine with his sedate pace, Danica seemed to be becoming more..frantic. Rolling his eyes he sighed and moved faster. He leaped through the window, clearing it and Danica easily in one hop. The sound of his landing was louder than something his size should have been. If Danica had jumped through the window the way Kaz had, she would have slid, or fallen and rolled, much more than Kaz had. It was the little things that if someone paid attention enough, they'd realize something was definitely off. His claws dug into the floor to stop his movement, tail lashes around to keep him balanced.

Standing up he moved towards Danica, flicking dust from his hands and claws. The woman was huddled up, freaking out, and Kaz couldn't understand why. The situation wasn't that bad, hell, they hadn't even been shot at yet. Crouching in front of her he held out a hand, ”Call me Spike. It's as good a name as any I suppose.”

Kaz looked out of the broken window for a moment, ”You've never done anything like this before have you.” He said it was a wry snort of laughter, ”I have, and you'll be fine. No need to freak out over this, and if you are, ya might as well bust up a few cops in the process.”

Danica couldn't believe how casual Kaz was being about everything that was going on. The mere idea of her being discovered to be a mutant was an absolutely terrifying idea. Right now her mind was a complete jumble of thoughts and emotions that were on the verge or raging out of control. More than anything she was scared. Ever since that night her life had been spiraling out of control and the more she tried to pull everything back together, the further apart it fell. There was grief and anger over what had happened, causing tears begin welling up in her eyes. “I didn't mean to... he... it just happened,” Danica said.

The darkness of the old abandoned building didn't help matters much either as the atmosphere put her on edge. From time to time her eyes would dart around as if they were looking for someone or something. Scared, curious, afraid, it wasn't hard to see that Danica was a total wreck emotionally. “It's not fair, I never asked to be made this way, I just wanted a normal life,” Danica said, then her voice became exceedingly angry. “Not like anyone cares, all that matters getting rid of the dirty mutants.”

A few times she looked up toward the window as the sirens finally stopped a short distance away followed by the low thud of car doors slamming. There was already a crowd of people gathered around the victim, onlookers of all shapes and sizes, trying to see what they could as the police moved in to cordon off the area. Danica didn't seemed to care about any of that and was trying to regain some measure of self-control through a series of deep breathing exercises. While things picked up outside they finally started to calm down inside, both within the building and the young woman.

Everything came to a sudden halt a few minutes later when there was an audible click and a bright light appeared in the a side door of the building. A police officer started to say something when an orange arc ripped through the air, courtesy of Danica's extended arm, and struck the man. He bounced off the opposite wall of the alley. Another voice called out the man's name, 'Garth', in a surprised manner followed by the sound of running feet. A second police officer appeared a moment later and the woman drew a gun while yelling something about mutant freaks. From those two words alone one could practically hear the mental 'snap' from the expression on Danica's face.

“Freak? FREAK?!” Danica said. As the female officer started to say something about officer down into her shoulder radio and aim with weapon, Danica let out an enraged yell. Throwing both arms out to the side she leaned forward and cut loose. This time instead of a pop or crack from the hands, a sustained blast erupted from her eyes. The second police officer was struck in the chest as well, only she ended up going through three walls, crunch, crunch, crunch, and coming to rest in a pile of bricks and debris. Looking toward the front of the buildings Danica tilts her head to one side, then the other, causing it to pop each time.

“What's the world coming to when a girl can't even have a nervous breakdown in peace,” Danica said. Through the window two more police officers could be seen running down the alley as a number of rubber neckers gawked from the street beyond. Now instead of a nervous wreck Danica actually seemed to be quite angry. Kneeling down with one hand on the ground she gave a sadistic smile, then with another 'THUMP' of energy from both legs, she flew straight out the window.

Kaz, 'Spike', snorted at the woman in front of him. ”A normal life? Sister, you're in the wrong city for that. There's nothing 'normal' about this place or the people living here.” His statement was more true than even he could believe. The people of NYC were crazy, every last one of them. With all the crap that had happened within the city, he was surprised anyone wanted to live there. When someone would comment about how New Yorkers have 'seen everything', they may have been joking, but it wasn't far from the truth. With the city's high concentration of mutants, they were constantly bombarded with the weird and unexpected.

Shaking his head, ”Can you blame them? It's what humans do. Their primitive minds react the same way they have for thousands of years. When they don't understand or comprehend something, they fear it. Because they fear it, they hate it. It's how they deal with being weak.” Spreading his arms, ”We're the closest things to gods humans know. Of course they're terrified and want to kill us, that's how humans always react.”

Before the light came on Kaz had turned his head toward the source of the sound. When the officer clicked the light on, Kaz squinted his eyes involuntarily, the light blinding him for a moment before his pupils reacted, narrowing nearly to nonexistence. In that moment Danica had let loose one of her bolts and taken the officer out. Kaz wondered if the woman had used the same strength on the officer as she had when she fired at Kaz. As he watched the officer slump to the ground against the wall, he smiled.

He had begun turning his head and speaking, intent on applauding her action when a voice called out in the night. Apparently the officer's partner was nearby. Kaz sighed. He had a feeling this was going to get worse. Kaz wondered if Danica knew of or cared about the META bots. Again he began to say something when the woman's entire demeanor changed. She went from being meek and afraid to angry and violent. Kaz approved of such reactions in a general sense.

Moving quickly he moved towards the window to jump out and deal with the partner, but was beaten to it by Danica, who's optic blast sent the partner crashing through a series of walls. Kaz could see that the woman was quite dead, had to be. That much force would have crushed her against the first wall, the others just served to further pulverize her. Kaz stopped in his tracks and looked at Danica, surprise evident on his alien face. ”Da~mn.” It wasn't a curse but an exclamation of surprised approval. It was impressive, as was her entire change of attitude.

“What's the world coming to when a girl can't even have a nervous breakdown in peace.”

Kaz barked out a deep rumbling laugh. ”When I suggested busting some heads, I didn't think you'd actually for it.” Kaz paused before shrugging and speaking again, ”You realize they're probably going to get backup from those bots right?” He jumped out of the window followed quickly by Danica.

When he landed Kaz headed straight for the nearest officer. There was a time he would have had no reservations about indiscriminately killing the officers, but that was some time ago. He knew they were just responding to a call, to the death of a human, and because of Danica's actions they were almost certainly on high alert. They'd be ready to defend themselves, and the civilians with their lives, probably expected it too. Of anyone in the city, the people of the NYPD were the craziest of anyone.

There were more cops in the area than he had originally suspected. When he came upon two of them, he stopped within a short lunge of them and spoke. ”Two officers down, probably dead. Do you want to add more to the body count?” The two officers had frozen in place at his sudden appearance, but that had only lasted a fraction of a second before they both reached for their guns. He kept track of each officer, the first one didn't raise his gun, but the second one had it pointing directly at Kaz.

Apparently these two were an experienced team as they moved in unison, without needing to speak. The first of the two began speaking confident that his partner had him covered. ”Of course not, we would prefer to deal with this peacefully. So if you would come with us, peacefu-”

Kaz laughed, ”You're a joke. I'm trying to give you the change to live until tomorrow and you want to arrest me?” He crouched down on all fours, his spines sticking up and out. ”This is not a negotiation, it's an ultimatum. Leave. Now. Or die.” The second officer's head was turned and lilted just a bit to the side and only had one hand on his gun. It was obvious that he was speaking into the mic, requesting backup at their location.

Shaking his head he sighed, ”Stupid humans.” Kaz lunged at the second officer. While he moved fast, he wasn't as fast as he normally was, and because of that, both officers were able to unload a number of shots into Kaz. They didn't penetrate the outer layer of skin, but he felt their impact. Because he aimed at the second one, the first had time to move out of the way enough to not be bowled over by Kaz. The spike on Kaz's arm and leg did clip him though, sending him into a spin as he began to fall over.

Flicking his tail at the falling officer he smashed the spiked end of it into his face, puncturing it in multiple places. A quick movement had the tail wrapped around the officers neck.

Kaz's claws hand buried themselves into the second officer's chest near the connection of the shoulder to the torso. Despite the pain the officer was obviously in, he didn't give into it, instead he fired his gun into Kaz's torso at point blank range. Flattening against Kaz's skin, the bullets fall down onto the officer. When the firearm clicked empty Kaz looked at him, ”I gave you a chance.”

Placing a foot on the man's chest, he took hold of each of the man's shoulders and began to pull. He put his full weight onto the officer's chest, snapping his ribcage as he tore the man's arms off. Standing in the gore Kaz move the first officer forward in front of him. The officer was still alive, grimacing in pain, blood flowing from the puncture wounds on his face. Though he was in obvious pain and being held up by his throat, this man still refused to give in. Raising his hand, and gun, he aimed directly at Kaz's head and fired.

The gesture was futile, his hand wasn't steady and Kaz barely had to tilt his head downward to deflect every shot. Frowning Kaz knocked the gun from his hand, and using the same hand he grabbed the officer's head and smashed it into the ground. Kaz hopped up and dug his claws into the side of a building. He was curious to see what sort of mayhem Danica was causing.

“Can you blame them? It's what humans do. Their primitive minds react the same way they have for thousands of years. When they don't understand or comprehend something, they fear it. Because they fear it, they hate it. It's how they deal with being weak.” Kaz said, spreading his arms outward, “We're the closest things to gods humans know. Of course they're terrified and want to kill us, that's how humans always react.”

“They do, don't they...” Danica said. Listening to those words and looking at the destruction that she'd caused, Danica thought about that for a moment. Being the closest thing to a god that most humans had ever seen. Looking down at her hand she flexed it curiously. That optic blast was the first time she had ever tried to put any true force into one of her attacks, and the results surprised even her. Never before had Danica imagined that she could possess that kind of power. 'The closest thing to a god,' Danica thought.

The more she thought about it the more it seemed to make sense. They were giants among insects, almost akin to living gods on Earth. Capable of everything a human was, and more, mutants had powers and abilities most people could only dream of. Humans reacted to her with fear, and she reacted to them with fear. More than anything Danica was afraid of being attacked, it was something she'd always feared because of her lack of physical prowess, but now the abilities she possessed seemed to more than make up for that. It was so easy for her to simply knock people aside as though they were nothing.

“When I suggested busting some heads, I didn't think you'd actually for it. You realize they're probably going to get backup from those bots right?” Kaz said.

“Meta bots eh?” Danica said. “Guess we'll find out just how strong I am then, won't we?”

“Two officers down, probably dead. Do you want to add more to the body count?” Kaz said.

“Did you seriously just ask me that?” Danica said. She started to walk toward the other end of the alleyway to see if there were anymore police officers coming, when she was nearly mowed down. From around the corner an officer came running and literally skidded to a halt upon seeing Danica, whom he almost missed in the rush. Both were shocked into silence for a moment by the near collision and looked at one another without moving or saying anything, then she was the first to react.

“Oh my god!” Danica said, her voice was a high pitched squeal. Looking at Kaz she whimpered and pointed. “It's one of those mutant things, it's attacking people! Oh my god, you have to save me!” The officer took a step in front of her, placed a hand on his gun and started to say something. Before any words could escape a large orange burst from behind sent him sliding face first along the ground, dead as a door nail. Standing there in the alley with an index finger extended, a small curl of smoke rose up as a smirk crept across her face.

When a second officer appeared not far behind Danica spun around, only this time she decided to take a different approach. The blasts that could be ejected from her legs had a considerable amount of force. If they were able to propel Danica into the air, it meant there was a downward thrust involved. As the officer took a split second to assess the situation, she jumped up as if to drop kick, but instead fired a blast of energy through her legs. In a horizontal position the blast bounced the police officer off the wall, only cracking a few ribs in the process. For her part Danica flew back like a little bottle rocket, hit Kaz at an angle, without striking any of his numerous spines and spikes, then bounced off the wall and landed face down on the ground.

“Ouch...” Danica said.