It was time to go out again... she could feel it in her bones. Time to take out her aggression on those who deserved it, and maybe get a little justice done in the process. Now, Megan was no hero. She'd be the first and last to wholly dispute such a claim.

... but that didn't mean she couldn't try to play the part.

She seen it in a dream, once. A different her, with different beliefs. A glimpse of something she'd honestly never thought she'd become. While that strange vision of herself didn't exactly fit her currently, like a square peg and a round hole, that didn't mean she hadn't at least learned a few lessons from it.

She strapped on the various pieces of equipment that she'd gathered, shrugged on her dark hoodie and slicked her hair back into a tight bun. A red kerchief was knotted behind her neck, ready to be tugged up into place to cover her up to the eyes. Form-hiding cargo pants and boots too keep the cold out finished her getup. She stuffed her favorite knife into a holster at her waist, tucked a small stun gun into one of the pockets on her pants, and slipped a pair of (very illegal) steel knuckles onto her fingers.

She felt ready for anything.

Patting herself down once more, just to be sure, she pocketed her keys and exited her apartment. The short drive ahead of her passed quickly, and before she knew it she was outside her old apartment. Roach's apartment. Subsequently, that meant she was also across from the Sanctuary. Earlier that day she'd made a phone call to a friend, questioning whether or not she'd be up for a bit of an outing. Considering the fact that she'd gotten ready and driven all the way over, she'd probably received a yes... or some resemblance of one, anyway.

Megan sat straddling her bike for a moment, flipping out her phone to check the time, before she tugged her helmet off. She was right on time, maybe a few minutes early. The anticipation growing inside her was too great to sit on her bike and wait, so she slipped off and crossed the street. It was much easier to pace around outside while she waited for Allison, or even to lean against a wall and tap her foot impatiently.

Allison did not feel ready for anything. Her feelings were much more specific than that.

Allison had always had an inclination toward doing something, particularly a ‘something’ that would reassure her that she had fixed some tiny part of the world and made it all at least a bit better because she existed. Opportunities, however, had not been very common; Allison’s parents did not want to risk their reputations, and Allison getting involved in anything controversial would have done that. So Allison wore new tattoos to school every day, and planned things she never got to do, and seethed. Since moving to New York City, and especially into Sanctuary, some of that had calmed. Allison at least felt less like her parents could make her stay quiet when they had no idea where she was.

That didn’t mean Allison actually accomplished anything, though. She thought of plenty of things to do, but couldn’t get them done, which meant all the resentment and energy and frustration was back to sitting and swirling and seething, unable to do anything but make her walk around with tense muscles and a posture that insisted she was easy to provoke.

When Megan called, she was halfway through dying the white of an eye black; something that, fortunately, did not cause the same damage that trying to dye her iris had. Her answer was distracted, and probably sounded a bit odd with her stuffed nose--absorbing ink into her eye was far more painful than Allison had adjusted to yet--but the resentment and frustration and energy had found what looked like an outlet, and her agreement edged a bit closer to demanding than enthusiastic.

Allison spent the rest of the day stripping all the ink that had built up out of her skin, and covering the resulting paleness with black lines and swirls and dots over dark blue. She finished dying the whites of her eyes black (and, with her face an inch from the mirror, noticed that her iris were getting lighter and a bit purplish), and the inch of hair closest to her skin was almost as pale as her skin was without the ink.

Allison might have cared that such visibility was dangerous, if she hadn’t been so busy being pleased about it. Wearing a jacket was unfortunately necessary in the cold, but at least when she met Megan her face was still visible, and so were her hands, when they weren’t in a pocket checking on the knives she’d stashed there.

Allison wasn’t ready for anything. She was ready to get into a fight.

A curt nod and a crooked smile at the girl was her greeting, as Megan stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat. There probably wasn't much need for her to explain things, as she had already dropped the majority of the information she had over the phone.... and she was sure Allison was more than prepared. "Nifty tattoo's."

Still, the gnawing urge to start gabbing about what she had on her mind was tempting. Maybe it had more to with all of the experiences she'd been through in the last few months, but she just felt the need to make sure everything went smoothly.

She'd spent most of the day researching the people she had in mind, what they looked like, how they usually acted. Kids with silly blades who mugged people for their wallets, or hung around in the dark to harass people. Small fry, considering what the two of them had already been up against. But... considering what had happened the last time she and Allison had taken to the streets, how painfully unprepared they'd been to face down the gang of kids (and more importantly that damn mutant), then the Liliths and their swift initiation into the ranks... Megan didn't want any screwup's happening on her watch again. She felt oddly responsible for the girl at her side, more so now than ever since they were "sisters" among the Liliths.

... and since she'd seen too many friends die, in that wicked dream.

"I don't expect we'll have to wait long, they're pretty habitual when it comes to what time of night they show their faces." She started walking, heading down the street, intending to move a few blocks then hook a left.

“Thanks.” Allison was quite proud of her current tattoos, and the spark in her eye was temporarily overwhelmed by that. “They took a while, but it was fun.”

The silence during the walk could have been a bit awkward, but Allison didn’t really care. She preferred it, to some degree; it was easier not to make small talk while her brain was busy spinning with frustration and opportunity and adrenaline. So she left the silence alone, listening to footsteps on cement and not fully aware of all the times when her fingers brushed over her pockets, checking.

“That’s good.” Convenient, anyway; it would have been annoying if their prey didn’t show up. They could certainly have found others; bullies and bigots were easy to find, after all. But Allison didn’t want to wait. And, as much as she didn’t care what exactly the bullies and bigots had done wrong, she still cared that they’d done something wrong.

(She remembers when crossing Queen Maxine was wrong, when anything but what she wanted was wrong. She remembers telling herself that bad wasn’t as bad when there’s no other option, and that whether might makes right doesn’t matter when all anyone cares about is survival. She thinks that might be what right meant originally, and doesn’t think about how much simpler that was, and only sometimes counts the days until she’s back there again.)

Allison followed Megan, caring much more about what was in her pockets than what was ahead.

Silence... Silence was okay. Comforting in some sense, tranquil in in others. It let her get her thoughts together, plan things out a little more. One could never be prepared enough. The calm was also unnerving. The urge to babble about anything, so long as it broke the quiet, was strong.

For blocks, a few turns, and another few blocks, she resisted the urge. And just when she was about to break the silence; voices. Megan slowed her steps, straining her ears to pinpoint where they were coming from, and held a hand out to signal Allison to slow as well.

"Yeah... serves them right. Wish more video's would pop up like that." They chuckled.

Megan glanced down the sidewalk, across the street, and then finally to her right and down a ways. The voices seemed to be coming from a backstreet who's entrance was just up ahead of them. She approached it with caution, and strained her ears again.

"Tell me about it, Bro. I wish I could have been there to get a few kicks in myself. The more Mutt's we put in their place, the better off this city will be."

The twenty six year old's eyes narrowed momentarily, and she paused at the corner of the Alleyway.

"You know, Greg, I ran into one of them once. This really fugly chick. She had branches coming out of her back and $#@%. F#@$in freak of nature. Me and my buddy followed her for a while, and when she was nice and alone we took turns breaking the sticks off." The two shared a laugh, then continued. "Man... screamed just like a human... almost looked like one after all the branches were gone, too. Too bad she was a Mutt, right? Had a pretty nice rack."

Gritting her teeth, Megan glanced at her companion and spoke in a hushed voice. "C'mon.. lets keep going; head back the other way." Nodding her chin the way she came, she turned from the Alley... though it took a lot of effort to do so. The two unknown males talking definitely riled her up, considering they were talking about people like her. but she didn't know exactly how man of them there were or whether they were armed. She didn't feel comfortable leading Allison blinding into danger again.

Slowing felt more like the sudden mental jerk than the slight physical change it was; Allison shook her head and glanced over at Megan. It felt like she ought to say something, but she didn’t know what to say. ‘Are they close?’ ‘Is this where they hang out?’ Can you think of anything to say that isn’t glaringly ridiculous? It felt like a moment that demanded conversation, though….

"Yeah... serves them right. Wish more videos would pop up like that."

Allison’s mouth snapped shut at the same time as her eyes narrowed.

To be fair, they could have been talking about any of a number of other videos. The biggest spread and outrage and public obsession with the gargoyle’s beating had been some time ago, and it wasn’t like there weren’t videos in the world. They could be talking about ants eating a tarantula, for all Allison knew.

Her mind jumped to the gargoyle beating video anyway.

Allison wasn’t conscious of following Megan, creeping closer to hear better; she was aware of the tension in her arms and spine, and the mindset that took control of the ink in her skin without moving it yet. It would stay where it was for now, but the second she had a target….

That second, apparently, was going to be farther away than Allison wanted it to be; Allison knew that Megan’s idea was better, even if it felt like unnecessary caution. So she nodded, even if it was jerky and her teeth were clenched and her eyes still narrow.

She turned, intent to push the things heard from her mind and simply focus on what they come out here to do.

"Yeah... yeah... Ya know, I wasn't supposed to say anything, but... hey, we're both on the same team here. Me and some of the guys were going to go out tonight..."

Curiosity and a heightened sense of suspicion stopped the twenty six year old in her tracks. With her back turned toward the voices, she clenched her fists and waited.

"There's this place just a few blocks down from here. Some couple just moved in with a pair of mutie kids, and we were looking to give them a proper welcome to the neighborhood."

Glaring at the sidewalk, Megan half turned to look at Allison. She knew what she wanted to do, deep down in the pit of her stomach she knew... She wanted to round the corner and knock the teeth out of the mouth that had uttered those words. Allison, though.. she didn't know what the girl was feeling. It was easy to assume anger, considering the scrapes they had been in before.

Was this worth dragging her onto another dangerous situation...?

She was uncertain.

"... scare the freaks off somehow." The two voices continued, "They think they can just live anywhere they please. I don't want those little mutts mingling with my kids, that's for sure. Who knows what kind of diseases they have.. or.. or... whatever it is mutants carry these days."

God damn, these #$@%&'s were sure making it hard to walk away.

Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!

... and then just like that one of them stepped out of the alley, to stretch his legs and look around, when he caught sight of Megan and Allison.

Allison didn’t want to leave. She knew it was smart to leave, but that didn’t mean she wanted to. She would, since she knew it was smart, but….

Fortunately for Allison’s patience, it turned out that reality didn’t want her to leave, either.

Allison certainly wasn’t leaving before Megan did; as long as Megan waited, she stayed still, keeping her eyes on the wall as if she could see the voices she was glaring at. Really, she was paying much more attention to the glaring than she was to the voices anymore; she didn’t want to hear what they were saying, nor did she need to. They’d already said more than enough to earn her anger.

Allison’s anger had never been impressive. That was partly because it had always been trained; controlled and calm, never including a loss of control, screaming, or anything else spectacular.

She wondered if there was a word for mutant-phobic; most of the bigots seemed to be much more hateful and disgusted than afraid, like any group with the -phobic label applied tended to insist they were. I’m not afraid, they’re just disgusting!

But unlike most -phobic groups, the mutant-phobics ought to pay attention to their designation. Most of them weren’t afraid, but they should be. Because unlike most targets of -phobic groups, mutants often did have power.

Allison’s anger wasn’t impressive. It was, often, not even very easy to recognize, and looked like less than it was. But Allison was a mutant, and she had power, and being understated didn’t make her anger any less lethal.

As soon as the voice (not a man, he doesn’t deserve that much respect) appeared she stepped toward him and her arm shot forward. She didn’t touch him, but she didn’t need to; ink lifted from her skin and continued toward him, leaving her arm reflective pale white and the nerves burning, and the ink shot into his head, whipped around inside, and flew back to hover over Allison’s hand as the voice collapsed.

Neat, fast, and complete. Allison smiled; it would be a while before she was as good at that as she remembered being, but she was getting much closer.

"What--"

Before Megan could step forward and insert herself into the situation (or lack there of, at that point), or grab Allison and make a break for it... Allison took a step of her own. The word had barely made it fully out of the man's mouth, before Allison's ink stopped him cold in his tracks, and then dropped him like a sack of bricks. Megan didn't even need to take a second glance, and she knew he was dead.

From further down the backstreet she heard the other voice swear, a few tentative steps toward them were taken, before he stopped and ran the other direction. "@#$%!"

Darting around the corner so she could track the fleeing man, she nearly tripped over the dead man's body in the process. Up ahead he had thrown a door open, rushed inside, and was shouting things at someone; from what she could hear about mutants attacking Greg. Trusting that Allison would be right along side her, the twenty six year old tugged her knife from it's home at her side and swiftly followed after the guy. He needed to be silenced, and quickly, before the whole neighborhood woke up around them. What with tension thick in the air from mutant vs human debacles, she didn't want to risk her mug getting slapped all over the news the next morning, or in a video on the internet for that matter.

When she reached the door and burst into the building, she found quite a site waiting for them. Seven men of varying ages, each one getting up from a meal, drink, or seat, all eyes locked on one male who was reaching for a phone behind a bar.

Oh no you don't. The thought flitted to mind as she barged on in, hopped the bar and tackled the guy to the floor.

Allison’s smile was smaller, but still there as Allison followed Megan--slightly slower, they didn’t need to be tripping over each other--to the door. She glanced around once she got in, noted Megan dealing with one guy, and the others not yet reacting, shrugged, and the rest of her ink flowed into two more orbs; one above her other hand, and one above her head.

The ink followed as Allison stepped to the side of the door, gesturing at the outdoors and cold beyond it. “Anyone here who hasn’t beaten up any mutants, now’s your chance to leave.”

One short struggle later, and she'd managed to wrestle the phone away from the guy. He scrambled back and away, rounding the corner to group up with the rest of the guys in the room-- who were all paying very close attention-- and she hung the phone back up.

“Anyone here who hasn’t beaten up any mutants, now’s your chance to leave.”

The men glanced at each other, noting the very visible way she was controlling the ink above her head and suddenly were much more willing to believe their friends ranting, now. Standing, Megan rounded the bar and stopped beside the end stool.

"Listen, maybe we should just--"

"The hell do you think you are, freak? Breaking in here and threatening us like this?" Someone cut her off, and her eyes were instantly drawn to him. The tension in the room tripled, and it seemed like every single guy snapped out of a confused daze, into anger.

"This establishment isn't for your kind!" The guy who'd ran pointed his arm Allison's way, and stepped out in front of the others. "She attacked Greg! Just stepped out and used that filthy stuff she controls to take him down!"

The group of seven rumbled as many voices lashed out at once. Megan noticed someone take a step toward her out of the corner of her eye, and lifted her knife into view.

"You think you can just run around the city causing all sort of trouble, and get away with it?" A man took a step forward and spat violently in Allison's direction. "You think we're afraid of you, Mutt?!"

... and then all hell broke loose. Two of them rushed Allison at once, another bee-lined for Megan. Three hung back for a moment, while another vanished through a doorway at the back of the room.

Allison was kind of glad that Megan’s suggestion was cut off. She certainly wasn’t going to leave, if that was what the suggestion was going to be, and she’d rather not have to refuse. Or, at least, not let their enemies know that Megan was considering backing down. She’d just killed one of them in less than a second; backing down was not the logical follow up to that.

Allison sneered back at the men. “Call me Lily. And what kind is that? Woman, ase, mutant… person with a brain?” Allison knew the answer, of course, but mocking them was more fun. She grinned at the accusation and the ink over her head turned into a stream, lashing in their direction. A few stepped back and she laughed; almost told them what the ‘filthy stuff’ was, but let the mixture of voices drown out that inclination. No reason to warn them what to keep out of her reach, after all.

Allison sneered again, wrinkling her nose and stepping aside as one of them spit at her, and found two rushing at her before she could retaliate. Oh well; they’d get all of them eventually.

She skipped aside, dodging the men’s attacks and sending ink lashing out; not hitting them, or coming close, but still making them shy away. She smirked. “What, you don’t honestly think you can win, do you?”

“Mutts don’t belong here!”

“Tch. Mutts, mutts, mutts.” Allison slipped aside from another attack, ink tendrils spinning around her now and keeping the area clear. One swept through the eye of one of the men; he screamed, but only fell to his knees. Allison would have sighed, if she’d had time; that hit would all but blind the eye it had it, and probably some of the brain behind it--wasn’t that the part responsible for expressing and identifying emotions? Or empathy? Well, whatever--but hadn’t gone near where it needed to to kill him. “You keep talking about mutts; it’s like you think you’re at the pound or something.”

“******* bitch, what’d you do to him!” Allison had to scramble aside as the second guy charged, ignoring the ink that swept through his arm. She laughed anyway, ducked and jumped away and turned to get her back to the wall again, noting the two other men moving toward her, though more cautiously than the enraged one.

“Oh relax, he’s just blind, not dead. You’ll know when I start killing you, it’s quite obvious, I promise. And look, there’s the door--if you’re that worried, you can still run away.”

Not that they would, of course. Not many people would actually leave, when already enraged and offended and taunted about running away. But Allison had, technically, made the offer; twice, even. It wasn’t her fault if they were too stupid and bigoted to live.

Megan tried, but couldn't for the life of her, pay attention to anything other than her own fight. The guy who'd lunged at her was pretty big, not outrageously so, but he had bulk on his side. She ducked a swing that came her way, slashing out with her knife at his mid-section. He dodged the strike, stepping back a little and too the side, and threw another fist her way.

It was hard to keep track of where everyone went. Out of the corner of her eye she could see guys running toward Allison, but the constant bulk of her own attacker kept her from turning her head. The next time he threw a punch her way, she managed to nick him nicely across the forearm and earned a few precious moments to remove the lip of the bar from her back.

Allison's combatants were wary, but felt that they had numbers on their sides. She had that swirling black stuff to strike out at them with and in their minds that was all. Don't get hit; no problem. One fell to his knees a moment later, earning a pause in the action. "@#$%! I can't see!... I can't see out of my Goddamn eye!" The mutant girl suddenly became a lot more dangerous, and they in turn became a lot more angry.

Megan, having backed herself into the space behind the bar while she had the chance, prepared herself as her large opponent recovered and came after her again. He closed in, trying to press her into a corner with his size, and she waited. When he raised a fist to press the attack, her's flashed out and popped him neatly in the eye. The brass knuckled settled comfortably under her gloves added significantly more pain to her punch, and while he reeled back with a hand pressed to his eye, she hopped over the counter.

BAM! A door in the back slammed against the wall as it opened, and two men entered. One was a previous occupant who had fled when the fight started, another was new. The moment he stepped into the room, a strange feeling washed over Megan. It was enough of a change that she locked up long enough that her opponent managed to get around the bar and knock her off her feet with a solid fist to the cheek. She saw stars momentarily, felt the floor whack her in the back of the head, and when she attempted to roll over to her feet a heavy foot landed on her chest. The knife in her hand clattered a little ways away when a foot kicked it painfully from her grip.

What on earth had just happened?

"Jesus... you weren't kidding, Jacob..." The new comer started, as he moved across the room closer to them. "They really are just crawling out of the cracks now, aren't they?"

"Yeah... like Roaches." Jacob replied bitterly, as another guy moved over and helped the big lug who had punched her haul Megan to her feet. "Some'a my best friends are Roaches..." Megan quipped, and was ignored.

"Lucky I got here before they could do any damage. I don't expect I'd get paid back by my insurance company for damage done by vermin." After glancing at Megan once, he turned his full attention on Allison.

"I guess it's not all bad, though. This one's actually kind of pretty."

Allison ignored the guy she’d half blinded; as long as he wasn’t attacking her, she didn’t care what he did or said. Not while others were, anyway. The calmer two attacking her were keeping out of her space, only half-heartedly attempting to hit her; the enraged one genuinely attacked, but seemed too busy with anger to bother with sense, and so was still easy to avoid. Allison amused herself, poking at them with her ink in nonlethal spots; if pressure points worked with nerves, she didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t use them too. As soon as she found some….

Allison saw, and was slightly aware of, the other men in the room; focused on Megan--who seemed to be doing well enough on her own--or hovering uselessly in the middle. Allison didn’t really care, that much; as long as Megan was doing alright, she saw no reason to interfere, and she was just about on the opposite end of the room anyway.

The rest of the room attracted a bit more of Allison’s attention when a door banged open--not the one she and Megan had come in through, which was still open--and two men entered. Neither looked unusual, though; as angry as the others, sure, but nothing special, and when neither immediately did anything, Allison went back to poking at her own, immediate enemies.

That changed quickly as she heard Megan’s knife clatter on the floor; Allison looked over and turned, growled as she saw Megan pinned on the floor, and started towards her; the distraction earned her a solid punch from one of the men attacking her. She stumbled forward a step and lashed out without looking; the ink could move much faster than she’d been making it, and she didn’t give the man a chance to evade it this time. He collapsed as she stormed toward the other end of the room, fanning the ink above and behind her like a subconscious adaptation of a cobra’s hood.

She didn’t realize that none of the men had attacked her since she hit the last; she was distracted by fury that made her brain feel full of static and dust, some of which seemed to be escaping and sparking over her shoulders and down her arms. The shiver was anger, and she put down whatever was making the men stay out of her way to fear.

The anger was abruptly, if not completely, replaced with shock when Allison got close to one of the men waiting near Megan, pulled ink toward his neck, and nothing happened. She blinked, spun around to see it soaking into the floor behind her, and the staticky feeling in her head was mostly interrupted by a hit that knocked her onto her knees. Allison didn’t know what was wrong, but something was; her mind shifted from anger into notes and calculation bullet points before she noticed.

The back of her head ached, the inside still felt like static was crawling through it, and her knees hurt; she ducked, threw ink up behind her as she rolled to the side, it wasn’t there, the roll went over her head and shoulder instead of purely to the side and she was back on her feet, hand diving into her pocket for the knife she’d half forgotten, fumbling it open and lashing out at one of the two men attacking her; two seemed like so many now.

His hand was bleeding, and her side was hit; she backed away and stepped forward and stabbed, missed and backed away again, and a hit in her back made her stumble; another at the side of her face knocked her over, and she didn’t notice the small stream of blood coming from her finger as she clutched the knife, twisted to get to her hands and knees and got kicked in the stomach instead; a foot came down on her empty wrist and trapped it there; she reached for it with her other hand to cut the foot and leg away, but hands caught her arm first and she was pinned, too, on her back with arms on either side. But that meant something to push against; Allison kicked and for a moment was standing on her head and shoulders, but none of the men were in her reach and one knocked her back down, expression arrogant and bored, and she noticed the other had pried the knife out of her grip.

(She had a second knife, in her other pocket; as soon as her hands were free, they weren’t expecting that--)

Allison stayed still and tried to get back the breath she hadn’t noticed herself losing.

The newest man nodded to one of the others, and pointed toward the still open side door. "Close that, Alex." Alex hurried to comply.

"Uh... Stephan?... You sure it's okay to use our names like this?" One of the guys pinning Allison down asked cautiously. Newly named Stephan smirked, and chuckled. "Don't worry Daniel. These two mutants broke into my bar, attacked us and we were forced to defend ourselves." He glanced over at the prone form laying on the floor that the liquid wielding mutant had attacked. "James check on Patrick, then go grab the camera from my car, out front." He fished a set of keys out of his jeans and tossed them. "I think we should make a video of our own to put on the web."

Maybe Daniel knew Stephan better than the others (especially more than Megan or Allison knew him), because Dan speared a concerned look at the man. "Listen... I know it was a mutie that killed your dad and all... but--"

"That $@#%ing mutant doesn't have anything to do with this." Stephan's calm features momentarily contorted, and he took a threatening step toward Daniel. "These abominations will get what's rightly coming to them, every single goddamn one! If you've suddenly developed a soft spot for mutts, Daniel, then I suggest you leave now and never show your face around here again."

Dan quickly shut up, and avoided looking in Stephan's direction.

"Now," The blond man continued, running a hand through his hair to smooth it back. "Back to business."

Megan listened, her eyes pinned on the man's back-- occasionally flicking to where Allison was pinned. Disgust and anger didn't do much at the moment, while her arms were held tightly by the big guy behind her, but she was forming a plan to try and get the both of them out of this mess. She didn't like the direction things were currently headed...

"You know.... people used to take savages from the more undeveloped parts of the world and teach them a thing or two about how to function in modern society." Stephan continued, "Teach them the ways of civilized people; strip away all of the parts that made them different." He took a few steps toward Allison, his features relaxed despite all that had happened, but his eyes lit with cruelty.

"Keep your filthy hands off of her!" The words were out of her mouth before she realized she'd said them, but she didn't regret a single letter. Jerking her arms against her captor, she lunged forward as much as she could at the man and practically snarled at him. "I will kill you if you so much as touch her!"

He hardly batted an eyelash at Megan's furious threat, but a cocky smirk found it's way onto his lips. "Some are too far gone to help..." He stated, sending a bored glance Megan's way. "But others can probably still learn a thing or too." He gestured at Allison, "Grab this one, we'll take it into storage room. Oh, and strip it. Animals don't wear clothes, after all."

Megan had heard enough. Like hell was she going to let any of those bastards touch Allison! Over Megan's dead goddamn body! Whipping her head back into the face of the guy holding her (Harold), she stunned him with a blow to the mouth. It didn't take that much effort after that to wrench herself free from his grasp and dive for her knife. With the blade snugly in her palm, and she turned just as a man approached her (Casey). Her knife sank into his thigh halfway as she attacked, and with a shoulder to the gut she knocked him out of her way. Harold recovered from a bloody, fat lip she had given him as she flew by, but was too slow to catch her. Megan was headed straight for Stephan, intent on sinking her blade into his chest.... but James threw himself in the way and her knife slipped into his side instead.

A sturdy arm looped around her throat a second later, which was hooked into place by the crook of the Harold's other elbow, and she was lifted off her feet. She kicked, pried at him with her free hand, and attempted to slash at him with her weapon. Which was quickly removed from her grasp.

James recovered quickly after checking his wound, and boy was he angry. Megan didn't see the heavy wooden bat clutched in both of his hands, but she felt it when he sent it crashing into her ribs. Ribs that didn't stand chance against the force behind a Louisville Slugger; they shattered as if made of glass. The unexpected pain that followed exploded all along the left side of her body and knocked the wind fully out of her. It would have dropped her to the floor if there hadn't been an arm securely around her neck. The bat crashed into her side again a second later, she shrieked (or attempted to, as the cry came out as more of a gasp) and Harold finally let her go.

"Teach that one a lesson, too." Stephan barked, anger seeping into his voice again. Two mutants taking down and injuring his pals didn't sit right with him, and he was going to take it out on the more dangerous of the two. Something on the floor by the gasping, black-haired mutant caught his eye, and he knelt to retrieve it. It was a little black stun gun. The smirk returned to his lips and he glanced at the other girl, knowing just want he wanted to do with it.

"Harold, you and Casey stay here with that one. James, go get Greg, then lock the place up. I don't want anyone coming in here until we'd got everything cleaned up. Got it?" Harold and Casey nodded, and James handed his bat to Harold. "Gotcha." Nursing his stab wound, he then headed for the door. Daniel and Robert bent to retrieve Allison from the floor so they could haul her with them after Stephen.

Having dropped flat on her stomach, Megan couldn't move more than an inch for the first excruciating seconds she was free. Something, or things, was definitely broken. She didn't feel like she could breath normally anymore; like a bag of bricks was pressing down mercilessly on her lungs. When she finally moved, it was to grip her arms around ribs.

Harold noticed the movement first, and both of her guard-dogs were on the offensive again. The assault with feet, hands, and that dreadful bat pressed on; One landed on her shoulder, another squarely across her back. Casey's foot darted out suddenly, caught her on the temple. Darkness swam at the edges of her vision, which blurred off and on as she struggled to hold onto consciousness. Balanced precariously on one arm and her knees, she struggled to get a breath in and this time the action proved to be impossibly difficult. It felt as though she were breathing through water, and when the air came rushing back out again something warm rushed out with it.

At first just a little dribble of red, then with the second breath out came a little more... She could feel something warm slipping out of one nostril and down her lips. Then both nostrils. With her eyes fixed on the wooden floorboards below her, blurry little spots of dark red began to appear, then bigger and bigger blotches. More warmth trailed a path from an ear and down her neck, and within moments of the beating having stopped she was finding it hard to breath past all of the fluid leaking from her. It was puddling, pooling, under her; she couldn't stop it. Each hiccuping, gasping breath brought fourth more and more blood.

Where was Allison?... Allison... was that her name? Yes... where was she? She needed to leave. Needed to get out and go for help. The thoughts in her head were moving too slowly; she wasn't aware of anything around her anymore. The room was growing dark.