Amber hadn't meant be to out all night nor had she meant to wander quite so deep into areas some might consider dangerous.  Since her return to the human world from her self-imposed exile only a few weeks ago, she'd barely left the Mansion.  With the exception of an expedition to the Museum of Natural History in order to acquire her newest Kaprosuchus form, she hadn't gone further than the Mansion property lines.  She was getting claustrophobic and the only way to solve that was to leave for a few hours.

As was in her general nature, she left shortly after sunset, taking some transportable food with her.  For the early part of the night she just walked, enjoying the cool spring air.  No one bothered her and she she had no interest in speaking to anyone.  With all the effort she'd been putting into reintegrating into the human world, tonight was about her and her own peace of mind.  In solitude, she would find some of that peace.  As much as she desired to have a pack again, so too did she need time to be with her own thoughts.

After some time walking as a human, she found a dry, out of the way alcove where she was able to hide her robes and change shape.  As always, changing from one form to another was an excruciatingly painful experience, as bones shifted and muscles and flesh warped and twisted.  It was, however, mercifully quick and where once stood a human girl, now stood a deinonychus.  Instantly the world seemed more alive, blooming with the enhanced senses only a deadly predator like herself could have.  She'd missed this.  She'd needed this.

For most of the remainder of the night she continued her wanderings, experiencing the city in a different way than any human ever could.  She kept to the shadows, as out of sight of curious eyes as she could.  It was only as dawn was starting to color the sky that she returned to her robes and resumed her human form.  Being careful to cover every inch of skin except the slit of her eyes, it was with some trepidation that she started making her way back to the Mansion.  In the early dawn hours, before the sun was at its full strength, she could bear to be out for a while.  Unfortunately, every passing hour increased the dangers of the sun and she had neither money nor any type of identification on her.  Hopefully she hadn't wandered too far away from safety and she'd be able to make it back, without incident, before full daylight.

Ugh. So much ugh.

The sun was only just starting to rise, dawn barely sleepily winking it's way into existance, and Max was still awake. He basically dragged himself along the sidewalk by force of will alone as he made his way to the twenty four hour Quick Mart.

He'd worked all night, and been forced to pull double duty on clean up crew since one of the staff had not shown up at the club last night. He had dragged himself upstairs content to take a shower and go to sleep, but he didn't have any shampoo left. He probably could have called the front desk about it, but it seemed like such a prissy thing to do. So instead he had hauled himself back downstairs and out the door. He still wore his black servers shirt and smock.

He was so groggy that as he rounded a corner he almost collided with what he first assumed was a rather tall pile of laundry. He tried to halt himself but just ended up sidestepping his way into the things path. It was then that he realized it was a person, someone wearing robes. He looked at the slit in the robe and saw cold black dead eyes and repressed a shiver.

"Sorry. I'm not quite awake yet," He apologized, "How do you not burn up in those robes, it's Spring?" He blurted out stupidly.

Although it had been a while, Amber had spent enough time out in the city at night that she had a fairly good sense of direction and a good idea where she needed to go to get back home.  It wouldn't be a pleasant trip, especially as early dawn transitioned into full morning, but with luck she should be able to get back home without getting burned too badly, so long as there was nothing to interrupt the trip.  In an emergency, she could always change shapes and find some place to hide for the night, but that was always much more difficult during the daylight hours in the middle of the city.  Something about seeing zombie dinosaurs roaming the streets tended to lead to panic and people trying to kill her.

Walking as quickly as she was able, she wasn't paying as much attention to the world around her as she probably should have.  Of course, sometimes it was hard with her dull human senses.  Mere humans couldn't appreciate just how little they saw or heard or smelled of the world because they had nothing to compare it to.  She did and humans did not fare well in comparison to the animals of the prehistoric world or, she assumed, the animals of the modern world.  Of course, the latter was just an educated guess.

"Sorry. I'm not quite awake yet.  How do you not burn up in those robes, it's Spring?"

Unexpectedly, a stranger bumped into her and started speaking.  "Sorry, it was probably my fault anyway.  I don't mind the heat and I need my robes."  Left unstated was 'because I'm a mutant'.  Even covered up, it wasn't like she could exactly hide the fact.  The eyes gave it away even if nothing else did.

Max's initial thought when the mound of robes talked was that it was a girl. She returned his apology and stated that she needed her robes. For a moment Max thought of bad Vampire movies. Black eyes and fangs and a need to stay out of the sun. He pushed his mind out of horror movie mode and instead made the much simpler speculation that the girl was a mutant.

"Oh. Got ya." He said giving a thumbs up.

He looked up into the sky for a moment. The sun was sleepily rising but it was deceptive. Once the first rays broke the horizon it wasn't long until full daylight. The Spring had been a hot one so far and Max figured today would be another similar day.

"Where you heading? If you need to avoid Ole man sunshine I can call you a cab." He offered politely.

"I'm heading to the Mansion," she answered, giving the address.  It didn't feel comfortable accepting help from a complete stranger; she didn't understand the altruism.  Pack were supposed to help you in your times of need and friends, who seemed to fit a confusing space of almost pack but not quite, also sometimes helped you out.  But strangers?  Why would they bother.

"Would you really do that for me?"  She knew the reputation vampires held, of course, as evil, bloodthirsty creatures of the night.  She knew she wasn't one of those, but the jury was still out on whether or not she was one of the undead.

Things rarely went easily or smoothly for Amber.  Perhaps she should have anticipated what happened next given the time of night and the area of the city she currently found herself.  If the excuse that she had been out of touch with the human world for years and had forgetten some of the more basic dangers of the city had been accurate, it wasn't especially helpful.

From in front of them, two figures emerged from the darkness, a male and a female.  From behind them, she could hear the footsteps of at least two other figures, although there could have been more.  "This is our neighborhood.  If you want to pass, you need to pay the tole."  The words came from the male figure, apparently their leader.  The hands of the woman beside him pulsated with pink energy.  The leader had no obvious mutant traits, but looks could be decieving when it came to mutants.  They were in trouble.

The mansion huh? It basically confirmed what Max had suspected. The girl was a mutant and was trying to get home. She asked if he was serious and he lifted an eyebrow in confusion.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I? It's not that expensive a ride and it beats the hell out of walking all the way there." He said with a shrug.

It was one of those things Max didn't think about very often but other people noted. He was kind, possibly to a fault. He saw a girl in need and jumped. Call it chivalry, or caveman brain or whatever but he couldn't see a woman in a tight spot and not at least attempt to help them.

He didn't get the predators warning of danger like she had. So it was a total surprise to him when he heard the voice speak from in front of them. He turned to look at the man and saw the woman with her glowing hands. He could see the shadows falling over another pair of figures behind them.

"Toll huh? Man public streets are getting more and more expensive." He said.

He reached down into his fanny pack.

"How much I owe you?" He said with a cheerful smile.

Always best to start with diplomacy.

He seemed surprised that she would question his good will.  Well, maybe she was too cynical when it came to other people.  Maybe too much time spent in the woods had caused her to forget that altruism wasn't entirely uncommon among humans.

Then again, cruelty for the sake of being cruel wasn't uncommon either, as indicated by their friendly new neighbors.  So much simpler when you knew who had what was prey and who and what you might be prey too.  

"How much I owe you?"

The man and the woman started laughing, glancing back and forth between one another as if in good mirth.  "Oh, we don't want your money.  Well no, we do want your money but we also want your blood.  You see, we're been bored.  No one wants to play with us and we like to play.  Very very much.  So, will you play with us?"  More sadistic laughter, this time coming from all sides.

Only humans desired violence for no other reason than cruel fun and that made her angry.  Violence for a cause she understood.  Violence for survival she understood.  Violence for fun she did not understand.  A growl rose in her throat, sounding weak and pathetic with her human vocal chords.

So, will you play with us?

The man apparently had obtained a degree from Bad Horror Movie University. The words had been more cheesy than intimidating, but the tone of his voice had a chilling violence in it. His eyes were full of amusement, but it was a hunters amusement. A look or joy that occurred when prey was cornered. A shiver ran up Max's spine.

He didn't move an inch but his eyes darted around trying to assess how many of them there were. You didn't show a predator your back. Max looked at the bundled up girl beside him as his fingers gripped on what he needed in his pack.

"When I say go grab me and hold on." He said to the girl. He barely moved his lips and kept his voice to the faintest he could manage.

For the moment his best bet was to keep the guy talking. Stalling until a neutral party saw what was going on. The woman with her glowing hands would be enough to draw attention and if someone saw they might call the cops. It was a long shot but the best option.

"What are you wanting to play? I'm pretty good at hopscotch but I suck at jax." Max said.

He kept his voice casual and his face passive.

It had been a long time since Amber had been forced to fight anything more dangerous than a deer or a wild dog and those things were fought and killed for purposes of sustenance.  Back before her exile, she and Aura had gotten into numerous dangerous fights, not to mention the fights she had encountered simply by being a mutant within a world of bigoted humans.  She was rusty, she was angry and, as much as she was loath to admit it, she was just a little bit scared and that made her even more angry.  The human world was, in many ways, far more dangerous than the animal world and it was time she remember that.

"When I say go grab me and hold on."

She nodded her head ever so slightly, eyes darting back and forth between the two in front of her and the one beside her.  Of course, lacking in irises and whites, it was impossible to tell just by looking at her where here attention currently lay.  All that was needed was enough of a distraction that she could change forms safely.  Lets see how much fun it was for them when her teeth were clamped into their soft, little white throats and their life blood was poring into her mouth.  

"What are you wanting to play? I'm pretty good at hopscotch but I suck at jax."

More maniacal laughter.  "Oh, I think I can think of something much more fun than that," the woman answered.  Pink energy pulsed once again before shooting itself off from her clenched fist in their direction.  The stream of energy narrowly missed, flying through herself and the well meaning stranger.  When it struck the building behind them, it appeared to stick to it and made a slight sizzling sound.  Beside her, one of the hands of the man changed into a gleaming blade approximately 2 1/2 feet long.  Metal grew out of the forearm of his other arm, coming to resemble a round shield.

"Distract them," Amber spoke quickly and quietly.  She wouldn't need long.

The girl gave Max the slightest of nods. Good she understood. The sadist twins ran their mouth and the woman shot off a blast of pink energy. Max almost moved then, but some instinct in his brain forced him to remain still, to wait. The blast went by him and stuck to the wall.

Max turned his head only slightly and watched the pink blob begin to eat away at the building. So some kind of acid. His attention was drawn to the two men behind them. One had called up a bluish aura around his arm that had taken the shape of some kind of tentacles. The other watched Max and the girl with an almost bored expression on his face.

He looked back in time to see the man transform his arms beside the woman and heard the faint sound of the girls voice beside him. Distract them? Her voice had a bit of what Max thought was fear in it, but there was an edge to her tone that told him she was prepared.

"Wanna know my favorite game?" Max asked the man.

He waited till the man gave him a quizzical look and pulled a small cylinder out of his fanny pack. There was a striker tab and a fuse on it and Max ripped off the plate sparking the wick and threw it.

"Catch!." He shouted, "Go!."

Fun fact. You can mix sugar with a number of gardening chemicals to create a bomb. The man raised his shield as the cylinder made a popping noise and burst. It wasn't an explosive however, but a smoke screen and heavy clouds of the stuff flew out and around the man and woman.

Max waited for the girl to grab him and threw his power over them both. He reversed gravity and they flew upward along the side of the building. He turned to see the tentacle man lash out with four of his tendrils but Max spun and avoided them.

"Consider them distracted." He shouted over the wind and shouts.

A quick glance behind them revealed two other men in the merry little gang, one of which was standing there bored and the other of which seemed to have some kind of blue tentacle aura power. Bored guy was the one she was presently most concerned with given that his power currently remained unknown. With knowledge came the possibility of informed choices on how best to deal with one's foes.

Her ally threw his bomb and smoke rose up to envelope the area.  She heard coughing and swearing but the only thing she was able to see clearly was the soft pink glow from the acid woman.  Taking the man's hand, suddenly Amber's feet were no longer on the ground and she looked down to see another stream of pink energy cut through the thick smoke.  

"You're going to get exactly what's coming to you!" the woman yelled into the darkness, voicing shrill and angry.  Clanging could be heard as well, she assumed coming from the man with the weapons for arms.  She'd give him a much more active target very soon.

"Good distraction.  I just need a minute."  First, she had to wait for solid ground beneath her feet.  Once safely anchored, she put her faith in the stranger to keep their attackers off her for the half a minute it took to change from a human to a deinonychus.  Bones bent and broke, feathers and scales erupted from pale flesh and hair shriveled up into nothing and withing moments a vicious sickle-clawed dinosaur stood in the place of the girl.  

Shrieking her own anger, it felt good to be strong and dangerous again.  Fear fled as the world of sight and sound opened up.  The smoke choked her smell and she wrinkled her nose.  Now they'd really see who was strong.

His smoke screen elicited fury from the pair, which was exactly what Max had wanted it to do. Fighting angry made you sloppy. The two men that had been behind him were the real threat at the moment so with a twist of his power he pulled himself and the girl over the smokescreen and landed on the other side of the sword armed man and the woman with her glowing hands. It meant the were no longer surrounded and the girl told him she needed a minute to do whatever it was she was planning.

Max brought them to the ground and reached into his fanny pack to produce two of his steel yo yos. His smokescreen was beginning to puff out and he saw the man step forward with his sword and shield out of the small remaining cloud . The smoke whirled around his torso.

Max needed to keep their focus. He charged and the man swung his blade at him. Max sidestepped and jumped. His foot landed on the man's raised shield and he kicked, throwing the man off balance. The woman appeared in the smoke and threw a blast of energy at Max. The dancer spun and the blast slid underneath him, missing him by inches.

Max's arm extended and one of his yo yos flew out. It wrapped around the woman's leg and Max gave a hard pull. The leg flew forward and the woman fell. Her companion had recovered quickly and the man came in with his sword thrusting at Max. Max pulled on the string of his yoyo and the blade snapped against the steel wire and began to slide upward towards Max's hand.

Max stepped forward and brought his arm up. The string slid up the blade to the hilt and the sword slid over his hand scraping his knuckles. They bled slightly but Max used his other hand, still gripping a yoyo and threw a punch into the man's face. He stumbled back.

The woman regained her feet and extended her hand. She had him. He winced as he prepared to feel the blast hit him but instead he heard a large inhuman roar and looked behind him.

The girl was gone and in her place stood a fierce dinosaur. All action ceased for a second as he and his two assailants stared in surprise.

"Holy sh-" Max began

The beast charged.

The leap that brought the two of them to the other side of the smoke screen was slightly disorientating in its unexpectedness but it proved that the stranger who had come to her rescue (so to speak) was also a mutant.  A mutant ally was always better than a human ally and that had far more to do with the practicalities of having powers than it did with some indefinable trait that made mutants somehow better than humans.  Outnumbered they may still have been, but in a fight a human was often worth only half what a mutant was and this made the odds more even.

Those first, early moments of battle she was unaware of, wrapped as she was in the throws and the pains of the shift.  Had she been, she would have been impressed by the ingenuity and creativity in which her partner fought off their foes.  As it was, he managed to buy her the time she needed to truly become something dangerous.

Letting out her battle cry, both friend and foe froze for a long moment at the unexpected sight of a living, animated dinosaur in their midst.  She took a quick note of the battlefield, observing her ally engaged in the first pair who had made themselves known.  Just behind them, the man with the blue aura and tentacles had completed his own change and, rather than just having arms for tentacles, numerous blue tentacles of various lengths erupted from all across his back and chest.  He had a sadistic smile upon his face, looking right at Amber.  Beside him, the fourth figure still had yet to make his abilities known, assuming he had any, and he continued to watch without expression.

Meeting the eyes of Tentacle man in challenge, that was the target she wanted but to get to him, she had to get past the woman and her pink acid blasts.  Racing forward, she leaped at the woman from nearly 10 ft away, sickle claws out and in front of her.  A pink blast of energy whizzed passed her just as she landed squarely upon the chest of her target, claws digging into tender flesh.

If you've never seen a Dinosaur leap across a sidewalk and attack someone you can't really have an appreciation for the sight. The frozen moment of surprise as they all looked at what the girl had become bought Max the precious seconds he needed. He flipped the wrist on his left hand and the yoyo he had wrapped around the women's leg rolled up it'd wire and into his palm. He had one of the disks in each hand as his newly scaled partner jumped the woman.

Dinosaur or not she needed him to cover her. He didn't want to think about what she was doing to the woman. What those claws were doing. Instead he placed himself between his ally and the man with the sword arm. He kept tentacle brains I'm his peripheral vision

The man charged and Max sidestepped the blade. His enemy had reach over him and though Max moved with grace he was on the losing side of this. He stashed one of the yo-yos in his fanny pack and brought the other out, swinging it around by a length of wire. He uses it as a bludgeoning weapon swinging it at the man. He raised his shield and deflected it.

Tentacle brain moved to aid the woman and Max reached into his pack and pulled out a roll of quarters. The young dancer dropped under a sword strike and smacked the roll against the sidewalk. He sent a surge of power with it and the coins burst out towards the tentacle man.

His Aura saved him. The tentacles squirmed up and formed a barrier that the coins smacked into with a wet impact and stuck. They flipped back out and Max saw the coins fly towards his ally. Max dropped his power over the coins and they fell short but he hadn't deterred the foe.

His focus on the man nearly coat him his life. The blade flew at him and the sword cut into his side. He had just enough sense to move with the strike and the cut wasn't too deep. It would slow him down however. He needed to take one of them out.

He rushed the swordsman. Taking the man by surprise. He raised his shield, expecting a trick like Max had used with the coins. Instead Max vaulted up and painted both feet on the shield. He sent his power out over the shield and the man and kicked off hard sending himself towards the tentacle man. The sword armed mutant let out a cry of surprise as Max's augmented gravity pulled him into the wall of the nearest building and pinned him there.

Max landed between the Dinosaur and tentacle brain and gave him a fierce smile.

The instincts of the deinonychus wanted her to sink her teeth into the soft neck of her target, right into her pulsating vein.  The human side of her knew, however, that killing people was generally not the best choice unless there was absolutely no choice.  A feral shapeshifter might have had more difficulty in resisting such instincts, but she was no feral and it took only a small effort to crush them beneath the intellect of her mind.  Instead of going for the neck and probably killing him instantly, teeth clamped down on her shoulder and she let out an ear piercing scream ans warm blood filled her mouth.  The scars would be with her forever, but he would probably live.

Leaping off of the now prone body, she spun to face the rest of the battle.  Hopefully the guy would be smart enough just to stay down and not get involved a second time because if there was a second time, she wasn't going to be nearly so forgiving of his life.  A quick glance at her companion revealed him to a graceful and more than competent combatant and if they weren't presently fighting for their lives, she might have spent more time admiring his skills.  As it was, it was going to take both of them to get out of this in one piece.

She watched as he simultaneously took on Tentacles and Sword Arm, eventually doing away with Sword arm and himself landing between herself and Tentacles.  So, that was 2 gone and two to go.  Eerily, the silent man continued to stand and watch, making no hostile moves nor any effort to aid his fallen companions.

Letting out another shrill shriek, Amber leaped around her ally, towards Tentacles.  Tentacles shot out and attempted to wrap themselves around her, but her momentum was too much and her body collided with his.  As tentacles began to wrap themselves around her torso and neck, she slashed with the sickle claws on her feet, slicing clean through several tentacles.  He cried out and took an involuntary step back.  Probably, she shouldn't actually bite those things, not knowing what they might be made of but he continued to retreat as she pursued, claws slashing menacingly towards him.