Making it from point A to point B is no fun when you're running. Using a vehicle tends to be easier. Sure, you have to spend money on licensing and insurance and gasoline (most of the time), but ultimately there's a lot less questions when people see you going fast. 

As a runner, you don't always have to run. Sometimes, you can drive.

Elliott didn't have a license. His job today was simple. Deliver a motorcycle to the supplier, the middle-man who would sell the bike to the buyer. Who needs a license when you don't own the vehicle you're driving, anyway?!

He still remembered the first time he'd stolen a bike. He'd been old enough to know better, but young enough not to care. Oh, sweet youth. It had been a Harley, shiny, new, and big enough for a giant. He'd snatched it while they'd gone into a bar to get a drink. He hadn't been chased. It was awesome. The thing had been so big it had drink trays and a cargo area equivalent to an air liner. He wasn't sure how they'd gotten the thing, or where it had gone. The owner hadn't been a giant. He'd actually been kind of small, which made having a bike that large kind of strange. But who knew, maybe his ego more than made up for the discrepancy? Or maybe he just had a small--

"-- World, after all~" sang a passing car radio. Elliott glanced over his shoulder, looking away from where he was trying to hotwire a bike. It was just a little after sundown, and it he was just outside Manhattan, in front of a building. No owner in sight. Just a couple of weirdos in a black impala listening to Disney music. He watched as the duo in suits drove away. Just before they turned the corner, the music changed from Disney to eye of the tiger... then suddenly switched stations to Carry on my Wayward Son. Elliott returned his focus to stealing the bike. It was a 2011 Triumph Rocket III Roadster, for any motocycle snobs. Elliott wasn't aware of this. He was not.

((OOC: This can be the bike. If that link doesn't work, okay. ))

Cafas dropped the hammer with a deadly clang onto the anvil. His ears were still ringing from the hammering. The steel bar he was working on was starting to cool too far. He slid his tongs off the bench and, with practiced precision, clamped the bar and thrust it back into the coals to heat. The tongs were put back on the bench. An organised craftsman is a good craftsman, as he had read somewhere.

He'd received an order for a traditionally forged sword, from some collector online. It was a reproduction of a Scottish broadsword, though as it was it was closer to a roughly shaped bar of steel. Cafas hadn't needed the tirade on the importance of documentation of exactly which find it was a reproduction of and all the usual stuff he got from collectors, as if an armorer wouldn't know. Whatever, they were paying.

"Verdigris keep an eye on that will you?"

Verdy gave him a thumbs up from the belt sander. Her voice didn't carry so well over the extractor fans, so mostly she used hand signals. More than ever Cafas looked the part of a blacksmith. He slung his leather apron on the wall rack as he went to take a breath of air. Shirtless, head to toe gleaming with sweat and dark with soot, hair under a bandanna to keep it out of the way.

He pushed through the workshop door into the store. A few more steps and he was looking out the plate glass on the door at his bike. More accurately, at what appeared to be a very alienesque mutant trying to steal it. Cafas was not amused.

Entirely for the purpose of showiness, Cafas grabbed a sword from the nearest display. Seeing as he didn't plan to use it, he grabbed a full size zweihander, because damn if those things weren't intimidating to look at. With all six foot of weapon held casually over his shoulder, Cafas exited the store into the chilly near winter air. It was refreshing after standing next to the forge.

"Oi, mate. Get the hell off my bike. You're under arrest."

Isaac stormed down the street, fuming at Cafas for making him wait until nighttime to use the forge. Even under his coat and hoodie he burned mildly to stave off the cold; not enough to glow, but enough to keep from freezing. He hated this city.

He approached the light of the blacksmith shop, glaring at the ground.

>”Oi, mate. Get the hell off my bike. You’re under arrest.”

Isaac’s head jerked up at the sound, instinctively wondering if he was the one being yelled at. Instead, he saw the unmistakable, pink-haired figure of Cafas exiting the shop with a ridiculously long sword and addressing a hunched green figure that was… (Isaac squinted) that was attempting to hotwire a motorcycle. Cafas’ motorcycle, from the sound of things.

Well, that was just great. Isaac already hated the green figure for adding a disturbance to his currently terrible evening. A stolen bike would mean that Cafas would be distracted, which would mean a decreased chance of getting to use the forge, which would mean that Isaac had frozen his ass off coming out here for nothing.

His eyes narrowed. He was not about to let that happen.

You ever have one of those moments where everything goes to pot? Yeah? It's especially weird when the one to cause this change has hair in a color most teenage girls would call "cute". Hopefully that wasn't what pink hair was going for, because Elliott saw no other reason for a special snowflake of a grown man to have an unnaturally pink 'do. His mind was so focused in that second on why the hell someone would have pink hair, he almost missed the sword. It was a large sword, probably heavy. Heavy enough to weigh down the guy's shoulder. Too heavy for him to easily swing, if Elliott decided to run. Which meant--

His focus dropped back to the last few moments of his hotwiring attempt. The motorcycle started up.

He wasn't sure what the deal was with all these folks in plainclothes telling him they were going to arrest him these days. First Ice Cop, and now this guy. But he definitely didn't want to stand around arguing about entrapment or any of that. What he wanted to do was escape the whole situation. A runner's gotta run. To that end, he raised his hands like he was going to put them up, palm empty, towards pink hair. "Easy, pink hair." He said carefully.

The mouths on each hand opened up suddenly and a pair of red tongues shot of them, right through the ring of jagged teeth. They sailed across the distance between them to snag the wrapped part of the sword just below the blade and jerk it towards pink hair's head in the most violent way possible. In that moment of distraction, he turned and hopped on the already-running bike. He pushed off the ground and started moving. Right towards the guy approaching them, who he'd unfortunately not seen.

Isaac stared in disgust as two long… tentacle-tongues shot out of the green figures hands and grabbed the sword. Was everyone in this city some kind of freak? He quickened his pace, closing the distance to the running motorcycle while the thief was distracted. He didn’t feel like a chase and he wanted to end this as quickly as possible. Best to stop things before the motorcycle started moving.

The motorcycle started moving.

The night air filled with the roar of an open throttle and desperate escape. The thief didn’t even bother to turn on the headlight before racing away from the shop… and right toward Isaac.

Two steps to the left and he would be directly in its path. If those steps were taken now, he would still be in front of it. Isaac sighed as is his entire life had been spent cleaning up for others, cooled himself against the impending impact, and turned to the left.

The first step he was upright. The second step he dropped to one knee and turned his back to the motorcycle, leaning into the impact. A split second later his spine was hit by the front wheel. The tire grabbed his coat and slammed his right shoulder into the pavement as the back wheel of the motorcycle lifted into the air. The body of the vehicle rotated sideways around the handlebars, crashing on top of Isaac and dragging him several feet as it skidded to a stop.

I had better get to use the forge for this.

Here are a few facts.

Motorcycles are incredibly dangerous. Unlike a car, which is basically a big metal box, with a bike there is no such protection. It's just you and the road.

Bikers tend to wear leather jackets so that they don't become a bloody mess, in the event of a bike accident.

Helmets are required by law in most states, because they prevent a large amount of head trauma in the event of an accident.

Even at low speeds, a vehicle can do a lot of damage. More-so to people than to other vehicles.

Elliott hadn't gotten up to full speed. Pulling away from Pink-Hairs home, he'd started off at around 10 MPH. This was a positive factor in the pedestrian's survival. Unfortunately, Elliott and the pedestrian weren't wearing any protective gear, and the motorcycle hit the ground in a nasty way. The guy hit the tire, got pulled into the wheel and hit the nice soft pavement of the road. At the same time, physics determined that a large portion of force would lift the back of the bike up... up, up, up..and then, since it couldn't support its weight on the front wheel, it turned and came down on the pedestrian. Then, it skidded, with him pulled along for the ride. He survived. Somehow. Which was insanely lucky. Maybe it was how he'd turned his body, and prepared it. Maybe it was a mutation. Or maybe it was divine intervention. Regardless of what it actually was, luck was a huge factor, and Elliott was on another plane, so far as luck went.

Jumping wasn't something Elliott had had the foresight to do. In the collision, he'd tried to slam on the brakes, to no avail. Actually, that was probably was caused the physics of the crash to lift the back wheel of the bike. Elliott's mutation didn't require jumping, however, to allow his legs to survive a big fall. A big fall is similar to a big impact. And his lower half had been strengthened by his mutation to help dealing with this sort of impact, a fact he tested on a regular basis.

As the bike went down, he fell off it, backwards, away from the seat. When things go slow motion in a crash, you don't always have a lot of presence of mind. Having knowledge about how to fall helps. As he fell, he tucked and rolled. Since it had been cold, he'd worn a jacket. Luckily for him, it actually had been a leather jacket. No leather pants, though, just blue jeans. And the leather jacket hadn't survived the crash very well. Scrapes and nicks in the leather showed just how bad he would have been, if he hadn't been a lucky fool for fashion. Even lucky fools for fashion feel freaking frazzled from head injuries, though. His bells were fairly rung.

The green mutant space man staggered drunkenly to his feet, and swayed. He didn't have half a mind to crack some witty commentary about anyone getting the license of that guy in the road, or 'who knew flat pavement could have such nasty speed bumps?' What he managed to get out was "Guh."

As a side note, pink hair's bike was scratched from its skidding pretty good. It would probably still run, maybe, but who knew?

The green mutant had seemed to momentarily stop at the sight of Cafas. Maybe it was the sword, maybe it was the scarred, sweaty, sooty chest. Cafas' guard dropped just the smallest amount. He took another step out the door as the engine sprang to life under the Green dude, who proceeded to raise his hands.

Thank god, he's surrendering.

He likely should have expected something like a trap. Why else would he have finished hot wiring the bike? What he hadn't expected was for weird tongue appendages to shoot out of mouth hands and rap him in the head with his own sword. That was just surreal. The sword melted before it could do any real damage, leaving Cafas holding only the wooden handle.

What the actual...

While Cafas was still disoriented from the sudden attack of the weird hand tongues, Green boy opened up the throttle and was off. Very briefly off. Cafas' eyes caught up to him as he impacted a figure that looked quite a lot like Isaac. Isaac was slammed into the ground, the bike flipped mostly on top of him and pulled him along the ground with the unpleasant grinding of metal of pavement.

Ouch. Hope Isaac's okay. Hard to tell what mutants can survive.

Cafas had liked his bike. It made getting around so much more convenient. It was fun to drive on the upstate roads that he totally did the speed limit on. Maya liked it, and that was something he could entirely get behind. It seemed like the bike would maybe still run after that crash. It was only a maybe though.

Well, there go my insurance premiums.

Green guy, for his part, managed to roll out of the crash reasonably well, though he looked to have taken a reasonably nasty rattling to his head. He seemed unsteady on his feet. Cafas wasn't about to let that opportunity go. He set off at a run, trying to catch the green mutant before he could regain enough sense to run. He also needed to check on Isaac, and make sure the bike wasn't leaking fuel that was likely to catch fire and damage people or property.

What a mess...

"Isaac, you okay?" Cafas called to the grounded heat elemental as he closed in. Without really waiting for a response Cafas made to grab the seemingly stunned green mutant and force him to the ground. "As an X-man and official Deputy of the NYPD, I am placing you under arrest. Make this easier on everyone and come quietly."

Before the list of charges against you grows longer.

The scraping of metal on asphalt ground to a stop. Isaac exhaled through gritted teeth; he wasn’t hurt, but having to stop heating himself and then getting pressed against the cold pavement had done little for his mood.

>”Isaac, you okay?”

Isaac raised himself up on an elbow. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he shouted dismissively, as though Cafas had just asked if he’d been hurt by a slap from a six-year-old.

Pushing himself up onto his knees, he shrugged the bike off his back and let in fall onto the road. Isaac didn’t know much about vehicle maintenance, but it looked like things could have been worse. The front end was crooked and the side was all scratched up, but there didn’t seem to be anything leaking and the engine was still idling. Isaac stood and examined his clothes.

$&#@!

All down the right side and sleeve of his trench coat strips of cloth had been ripped open. The freezing wind on his face told him that his mask had been wrecked, too. A quick tactile inspection revealed that there were small tears in the outer layer of his hoodie. Before, Isaac had just been annoyed; now he was furious. This stuff was expensive.

Turning and looking for the thief, Isaac spotted him stumbling away a few yards to his right while Cafas bore down on him, yelling for him to surrender. Glowing an angry red, Isaac ran to join them.

You’re lucky he got to you before I did, you little s***!

Being in motorcycle accidents sucks. As a rule, being in any sort of event that causes physical trauma sucks. But more-so the ones that lead to an arrest.

Elliott at the time didn't have much of a criminal record. He'd escaped most of the fat tubs that had chased him when they'd caught him up to no-good. Running is a good way of outrunning police. But in this case, a motorbike accident wasn't the sort of thing he could simply shrug off. Unfortunately for him.

Pink hair moved to push him to the ground, and all Elliott could do was slur out "Hey, put a shirt on." He sounded punch-drunk. As he got shoved down, his eyes rose and focused on the seemingly-invincible pedestrian who hadn't been killed in the low-speed bike crash. Oh good, a stray thought hit him. At least the person hadn't gotten badly hurt.

Where was the badge? Where was the shirt? Why did the guy smell like sweat and a metal shop, up this close? Ugh. He felt like slag. Why was this happening. Those were only a few of the numerous thoughts he'd had.

"Hey, put a shirt on."

Gross. That shirt would be gross, if he put it on. Green had clearly taken a hit to the head in the accident. The extreme jump in radiant heat informed Cafas that Isaac had joined them. Cafas didn't have handcuffs. This was a clear flaw in the arrest plan. Enough liquid metal was still clinging to him though, that he could make an attempt at some. He gathered it up into a glob, then formed it into thin solid steel rings around Green's wrists, connected by a bar. Super strengthened and toughened.

Gonna have a hell of a time getting out of those.

"Alright bud. Let's see. Grand theft auto, reckless endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest. Maybe more." Cafas read him his rights as he held him on the ground. He was a lot more gentle than he wanted be. When his rights had been read Cafas hauled Green to his feet and kept a firm hold on his upper arm.

What am I going to do with this guy now?

He turned to the cherry red man radiating heat into the NYC evening. "Damn Isaac, what are you even made out of? Did that even hurt? Hey, could you kill the engine and stand the bike up, please? I gotta get this guy somewhere I can hold him until I can get him back to a station." Cafas dragged the mutant back up the street and into the store, through the security door, and into the drafting room, out of reach of anything too dangerous.

"So, first question, why were you stealing my bike?" Cafas was going to guess joyride. He seemed young enough, the way he spoke, for it to have been a joyride thing.

OOC: If you need me to change anything Elliot, let me know.

Cafas was talking to him, but Isaac wasn’t listening. All of his concentration was focused on the thief who was responsible for his clothes getting ripped. At this point, the only things about Cafas that registered in Isaac’s mind were that the pink-haired blacksmith was not the person he wanted to strangle and that his shirtless bulk was blocking the way to the one that he did. When Isaac did finally manage to force words out through his rage, the spit evaporated as it left his mouth.

“Do you. Have ANY idea. How much. It costs. To get clothes made. For me?!?” He held up a torn sleeve as accusingly. The trench coat actually wasn’t too bad; it was high-quality, but nothing special. Patching the basalt fiber insulation of the hoodie, however, would cost a two months’ worth of winter heating bills. And Isaac had VERY high heating bills. And he hated winter.

The glow from Isaac increased, edging its way to temperatures that were a danger to his yet undamaged clothes. He circled around Cafas so that he could look the cuffed thief in the eyes “You’re gonna pay for this, you little runt,” he said, the torn edges of his mask sizzling under the heat radiating from his face. “You’re gonna pay, or you’re gonna burn.”

Oh son of some random periodic element that can be used as a swear word. Let's go with Uranium. No, Krypton. Son of freaking Krypton. He'd been cuffed. Somehow. With mutant powers. That pissed him off incredibly so. That shirtless-no-cuffs had somehow cuffed him. Rearrange those letters, c u f f e d, and you might get how he felt. Maybe put the ffs first and the c somewhere in the middle? Give yourself a moment. There it is. He felt thoroughly screwed.

Try and steal one bike and things go sideways. He probably wouldn't work for that guy again in this city. At least it was a big city. There were plenty of potential clients.

>>"Alright bud. Let's see. Grand theft auto, reckless endangerment, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest. Maybe more."

The guy rattled things off. Did it really count as assault if he dropped his own deadly weapon on his own deadly head, Elliot wondered. On and on the droning pink boy went, reading him his rights. Didn't even give him a moment to talk, which was kind of rude. But also, it gave him time to think.

Thoughts. Those are good. Working to get to a good solution. Having time to gather thoughts also gave him time to recover from the crash. As he rose to his feet, he shook his head, and tried to shake off the after-accident funk.

This guy was a "cop" and an "Ex-man", just like Ice Cop had been, which meant it was entirely likely they both knew each other. He meditated on thoughts like that as pink hair started leading him in a direction. On and on, and into a building. Plenty. Of. Thinking. Time. As a side note, he completely ignored Mr. I'm-Invulnerable But-Not-My-Pants. Yeah. Way to demolish the "i'm alive" silver lining of the evening, complaining about clothes. Guy tried to intimidate him, and he wasn't impressed. Didn't even look him in the burning face.

He answered pink-hair's question using a thought he'd had during the copious amount of thinking time rights-reading and arm-leading had granted him. "It was just a prank, man!" Elliott sighed a melodramatic sigh. "Sam told me you wouldn't like it if you caught me sneaking the bike off for a new sexy paint job and a tune-up. Some early Christmas present this turned out to be."

Yeah. Sam. Ice Cop. Also an Ex-Man, from some Mansion for kids with gifts. He had the card somewhere around here. One X-man was likely to know another. This late, though, getting in touch with him might be an issue. The one-eyed mutant probably had women to please and schools to run, if his initial read on the guy were worth anything.

Cafas put a hand out to stop Isaac, realised within a foot of touching him how bad that idea was, and retracted it. "Sam?" Cafas gave the guy a more thorough look. He was a mutant, no denying that. Could he be from the Mansion? Yeah, he could. Cafas couldn't keep up with every coming and going at the school.

It did seem very unlike CS to use students to jack motorcycles for paint job, though. Cafas' eyes narrowed a touch, and he certainly didn't let the guy go, but he'd give him a few more questions before deciding what to do with him. "Just a prank? That's the defense you're going with? You're lucky no-one's dead or injured." Cafas cast an eye over Isaac, then back to the kid, "Yet."

Gotta keep him at bay a moment or two longer...

The metal manipulator turned so him mouth was not visible to the green mutant, and leaned in to Isaac, as close as he could get; He dropped his voice to be barely audible. "Unfortunately, after that name drop, I'm gonna have to ask you not to hurt him. Give me a few questions."

He's going to be lucky if this guy doesn't fry him...

Cafas spun back around, smiling. "So, why don't you go ahead and tell me exactly how you know Sam, and exactly why he sent you to steal my motorcycle?" The look on Cafas' face left no doubt that, should the answer be unsatisfactory, Isaac was going to be allowed to extract his payment, one way or another.

Isaac’s face flushed with heat and rage. Cafas was lucky Isaac wanted to use his forge or there would have been a fight right there. There may have also been a slight twinge of respect and comradery for his fellow blacksmith, but it was hard to tell. It was also fortunate that Isaac had been far enough away that he didn’t hear Cafas reading the thief his rights; Isaac and cops didn’t exactly get along.

Due to all these fortunate factors on Cafas’ behalf, Isaac managed to contain his anger at being told to back down from the thief who had ruined his clothes. HIS clothes. He glared at the taller blacksmith for a count of ten then stormed off, leaving pink-hair and green guy in the drafting room as he shed his coat and hoodie on the floor of the forge. If he couldn’t smash the thief’s head in, some random piece of metal would half to do.

As he dropped his shirt on the pile of torn clothing, Isaac turned back around and took two steps back toward Cafas. “Those were custom,” he pointed a finger at the hoodie and coat. “They were damn expensive and I wrecked them saving your bike. I am NOT letting this go.”

Fuming, Isaac turned back to the forge, looking for something he could melt and hammer into oblivion.

Yeah, he was lucky nobody was injured. That was true. He almost said something at that, but then the pink haired guy turned to his buddy and said something quietly. Seemed like the indestructible man was angry. Maybe he was trying to keep him at bay. Elliott seriously didn't see why he had to be so salty. It wasn't like he'd hurt anything other than his pants. But, ahem, he held that comment back. He let them go good cop bad cop on him, and worked on answering questions.

The angry guy stormed off right after pink hair asked him the question. Pity. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then looked at pink hair. What had he said his name was? He couldn't recall. Ah well. Hopefully, he didn't ask. "I met Sam when some guy stole his wallet." He said calmly. "The guy ran into me running from Sam. Sam said freeze. I thought the guy had stolen my wallet, and shouted something to that effect. After Sam caught the guy, he held me back to talk to the police about it and give my account. He gave me a card for the mansion." He stopped for a second.

So far, he'd said nothing but the sincere truth. It was a lot easier doing that than telling a lie. Now, came the lie. "That's how I know Sam. He introduced me to the mansion. And," and hell. This lie was really sticking in his throat. He didn't really feel into it, even though it was his only shot of getting out of this without getting into a fight. His voice wavered slightly as he spoke. "God, I'm really glad that guy didn't get hurt. I didn't see him when I was driving away. That was so freaking stupid. Should have forgot the crazy part of that scheme and just been up front about it. Look," he looked the pink-haired guy in the eyes. "I know a guy who can repair the bike. I'll cover it. Even give it a new paint job, my treat. I'd rather not have bad blood between us. And I really want a chance to apologize to you and your friend."

Now, he'd done it. That was as sincere as he was getting, offering crap like that. True, it also gave him a potential out. If he could smooth things over and handle them without getting arrested, that was great. If he was still getting arrested, and did that, Fine. It was his own damned fault getting caught. But it was bad for business leaving bad blood between himself and some local law enforcement in the city. Once they knew about you and had a vendetta, things just got personal. And he really wasn't happy he'd run into the other man. Mainly because it had been a loss of control of the situation, but also because. Hit and runs are bad for business. And. Whatever. He didn't need to explain his thinking, even to himself. He'd just let his mouth run, and he was going to be stuck with it, wherever it went.