Today...was not Paige's day. The morning started off with her being late for work because she slept in. Once she finally got to work, all hell had broken loose. If it could have gone wrong, it did. Customers getting the wrong size or order, the manager yelling at her. They even had her cleaning the restrooms when things had calmed down.

And now, she was finally off of work, and heading home, when she realized she had to go to the store, and now here she was, trudging down the street with grocery bags in each hand. Milk, eggs, bread, orange juice, and a bag of assorted canned goods and frozen dinners.

She stomped her way down the sidewalk, trying to avoid people. The sooner she got home, the better it would be. Of course, given the time of day, it was crowded because everybody and their brother had somewhere to be.

Blake was both a someone and a someone's brother, and so had double someplace to be. Specifically, he'd promised to meet Irri at the mall, since art and music stores were stupid and didn't actually overlap, and, well, they were going to spend at least part of the time at an art store, so Blake wanted to be there. And on time, because any lost time would come out of the art store trip, not the music store. That would probably be Blake's excuse for brushing silently past everyone in his way, if he bothered to make one.

Blake rarely did that, though. He frowned as he brushed past another person--or pushed, more than brushed; that was definitely a hit, not a brush. Blake didn't feel and particular need to stop, though; just swayed to compensate for the shift in balance as he continued.

Paige had gotten to a point where she was looking for an excuse to snap on somebody, anybody. Suddenly, some idiot teenager decided to give her what she was looking for. She was used by now to being brushed past rudely, but this...she found herself pushed, and it nearly knocked her flat on her back. If it could have, steam would have poured from her ears and the young woman forgot about getting home as soon as possible.

She stomped after the kid, his face practically burned into her brain. When she caught up to him, she said nothing even though she wanted to. Another urge overpowered the one that wanted to throw every insult in the book at him.

Instead, she grabbed him firmly by the shoulder with her left hand and spun him around as she threw a hard right jab at his jaw. Maybe somewhere down the line her parents had regretted letting her take those self-defense classes, for that very right hook was what almost kept her from graduating due to her disciplinary record...

Blake had no real idea what had happened, or in fact that anything had happened at all, until he had yelped and was stumbling back. "What the hell!" It took another instant to locate the source of the punch--a girl, damn it--and repeat his indignant confusion. "What the hell?"

Paige grabbed him by the collar, pulling him so her face was only inches from his. "THAT," she hissed, "is what the hell happens when you nearly knock me the **** over!" Her eyes were narrowed into a downright evil glare as she shoved him away, clenching her fists and debating hitting him again just for the sheer heck of it.

Blake's head jerked back as far as it could when the girl grabbed him. Which wasn't far at all, it turned out. This was... bizarre. And weird, and confusing, and slightly scary. But mostly weird. He stumbled back a few steps when she let go, and eyed her carefully. "What are you talking about? I didn't knock anyone over. Who are you?"

...Perhaps that was not the best response to the crazy girl. Blake backed up another step.

"You bumped me!" Paige nothing short of shrieked. "I swear to God I'm going to beat that New York attitude out of you..."

She growled, clenching her fists. This time, she stepped in and went for a low left punch to the stomach, followed by a right aimed to his face, somewhat calculating his possible doubling over from the first punch.

She didn't realize it, but her stance had shifted. Even though he wasn't fighting back much yet, she had dropped into her default fighting stance, feet apart, right foot slightly in front. Left hand level with her chin, right more at her chest. By now a few passers-by had stopped to watch. Others just ignored it.

"What is wrong with you?" Seriously, even if Blake had bumped into her--which he was not convinced of, but what not going to argue about--that did not justify attacking anyone like this. Also, wow this girl could hit hard.

And fast. Blake did indeed double over to grab his stomach, then get knocked back when she hit his head. He managed to stay on his feet, barely. "Are you insane?" He was oblivious to the watching (and in one case, applauding) passerbys; he was slightly focused on the crazy girl trying to kill him.

Okay, maybe this wasn't the healthiest way of doing it, but...beating up on this kid really was some great stress relief. Her eyes flashed at the word insane. "If by insane, you mean I don't take any ****, then yes," she hissed.

Paige too, was oblivious to the audience as well, mostly focused on the little punk she was trying to knock some sense into. She stepped in and prepared to strike with another punch, but someone caught her hand. When she looked, she gaped at the rather large male who now had her fist. He had to be pushing seven feet tall, and though he had on loose clothing and long sleeves, she could guess that not much of him was fat.

"I think he's learned his lesson," the large man said, rather softly for someone of his stature. "Now, why don't you try actually listening, then let it go?"

"But!"

The stranger cut her off. "Unless you want to try beating on me a little bit." It wasn't really a threat; the guy just laid it out as an option. To which, the blond shook her head. She wasn't that pissed--or stupid.

The guy let her go, and Paige just stared awkwardly at her former punching bag. "Uh....sorry?"

"I was thinking more of homicidal, actually." Which meant it probably wasn't a good idea to say that, but hey, it wasn't like the girl could get much crazier. Unless she had a butcher knife hidden somewhere on her, anyway, and if that was the case, Persi was just running. Screw appearances, Persi was not sticking around homicidal lunatics with butcher knives, even if said lunatic happened to be a girl.

That... was a relief. Really weird and probably something Persi was supposed to be ashamed of, but he could do that later; for now he was busy being relieved that someone had stopped crazy girl. And that apparently she wasn't crazy enough to attack everyone, just him. Although the resulting implication that Persi somehow looked like good bait for crazy homicidal girls was less than reassuring.

Persi stared awkwardly back. Was he actually supposed to accept a 'sorry' from someone who'd just been trying to kill him.

Oh, nevermind; of course he was. He didn't want to, and couldn't get himself to actually forgive her, but he was supposed to. He could at least try to pretend. "Um... it's okay." That didn't stop him from taking another step back, in case she got offended at the less-than-enthusiastic acceptance of her apology.

"No it isn't," Paige snapped. "We're only doing this because some big...." Her eyes drifted back to the large man behind her with the short dark hair, square jaw, and still apparently massive build even under the loose clothing. Good God his back and shoulders were ripped..."...guy...told us to."

The stranger took a breath. "Look. Times are getting bad enough without random and senseless fighting in the streets. A house divided cannot stand. This city, heck, this country, is currently a house divided. Unity is key. So unless you want this to crumble on top of you, I suggest we make nice."

With that, the large, philosophical stranger lumbered off, letting his statements hang, and leaving it to the two youngsters as to what happens. After all, one can lead a horse to water and all that jazz.

"Okay...maybe the big lug is right. Maybe I was just looking for an excuse to beat the **** out of someone today. You might wanna go put some ice on that jaw, like...soon though," she suggested with a slight shrug.

"Well... yeah." Blake... had no more idea how to deal with the crazy girl now that she wasn't trying to kill him. Of course they were only doing this because someone made them (her, though Blake wasn't going to argue; he'd been hit enough already, thanks), but you really weren't supposed to refuse an apology. Even if it wasn't genuine, or wasn't enough; you were supposed to say it was okay anyway.

...He also had no idea how to deal with what appeared to be a hippie wrestler who started preaching at him in the middle of the street. Weren't hippies supposed to be... basically anything but a wrestler?

Fortunately the hippie left before Blake had to respond, so Blake only had to deal with the crazy girl. He wasn't sure if that was an improvement or not. "Yeah, maybe...." He would, except for that whole already going to the mall thing. He'd put ice on it later, though. Or possibly at the mall, depending on how much it ended up hurting. And, unfortunately, he couldn't back up much farther without being distinctly out of conversational distance from her, which might offend her, and Blake really didn't feel like doing that. "Do you normally go around looking for people to beat up?"

...Oops. That was probably also not Blake's best choice.

"Nah. People who need a good beating usually tend to find me," she replied with a light shrug. Oh well, at least the walking mountain left. That was one guy she didn't want to piss off.

Crazy or not, Paige knew how to pick her battles. "So...I guess we're done here? She asked, eyes darting to the crowd.

This girl just kept getting crazier. Blake had no idea what to say to that. Except that maybe the people who found her didn't always necessarily deserve beatings; among other reasons for that suspicion, Blake was pretty sure he didn't. And even if he did, he got plenty of others in school, so this girl wasn't needed.

Well. That helped. Probably, anyway; Blake wasn't sure he was convinced he really trusted anything related to the crazy girl to be safe. It was his best chance, though. "Yeah." Blake didn't care too much about the crowd, really; getting stared at was hardly new, whether due to fights or any other reason. They were making it slightly harder to get away from the crazy girl though, mostly because they were leaving a nice empty space around Blake and the girl. He was getting to the edge of it, though. "See you." Hopefully not.