There was something relaxing about jogging. The feel of blood thumping through your veins, the wind caressing your hair. The rhythmic thuk thuk of running shoes on pavement. All in all, there was a kind of peace that came with the exercise. 

... Which was promptly ruined when someone else came jogging up along side her and intruded on her moment. 

Shelby pretended she hadn't noticed the guy since she had her ear-buds in. It had worked in the past to dissuade chatty runners from attempting small talk with her, so why not now? This guy, though... this guy wasn't about to throw in the towel so easily. He picked up his pace to pull up slightly ahead of her, and pointedly stared at the side of her face until she glanced over at him. Then he grinned. A pearly white flash of teeth she was sure was meant to blind her like a flash-bomb. His mouth started moving, so with a huff she tugged one of the buds from her ear. 

"--enjoying the weather?"

The small smile she shot back barely hid her contempt at being disturbed, and she nodded. Yes. She liked the weather or whatever. No, she didn't feel like talking. Go away. "Mmhm. Cool, but not overcast or rainy."

He took her answer as permission to launch into life story about the running paths around the beaches of California or something, and she visibly winced. Yeah... she didn't care. Time for a prompt exit. "--got this really well paved area that--"

"Oh gosh! Would you look at the time, i'm gonna be late for a meeting! Gottarunbye!" Before the last words had even fully made it out of her mouth she had taken a sharp left down a less-used gravel path through the park. She kicked up dust as she sprinted away, leaving Mr. gabby-jogger staring at her back in confusion. 

Funnily enough, in her antisocial haste to flee from the man, she had set herself down a path she wasn't familiar with. It was more wooded in this area. Less open and not street-side. As much as she enjoyed nature and trees, she felt the sudden foliage close in on her and stopped a short ways in for a breather. Had she even been in this section of the park before? She usually just ran a lap around the outside of the park, then gave up when her lungs and legs failed her and shuffled home.

Eyeing a nearby bench, she chose to ignore everything her PE teachers had ever preached at her about, and flopped onto it to catch her breath. Why hadn't she brought a water bottle again?

[OOC: Sorry if it's short, I wasn't really sure what to say.]

It was a rather nice day. It was a weekend, and so Danny had just gotten back from a tutoring lesson. He was wandering through Central Park again, which he had discovered had a surprisingly calming effect on his psyche (mostly because, taking out muggers? Best stress relief ever).

He didn't know this section of the park very well, as it was in the opposite direction of the way he usually traveled, but that made it all the more alluring. As he turned a corner, he caught sight of a woman sitting on a park bench. Considering he wasn't sure where he was at this point, he decided that it was in his best interests to ask somebody.

"Uh, excuse me," he said as he neared the woman. "I seem to have gotten a bit lost. Would you happen to know the way to the nearest exit?" From there, he could easily find his way home.

[Ooc: No worries~]

She missed the crunch of feet on gravel as someone approached. Mostly because she was too busy trying to force air back into her lungs, which weren't all too happy with her at the moment. When the stranger spoke up however, her head snapped in his direction and she visibly jumped. "Uh..."

Fidgeting uncomfortably from being caught lazing about while sweaty and red-faced, Shelby glanced back the way she'd come. "That way. I think." Of course, if he meant the way out of the park itself, rather than the area they were currently in, she'd probably need to elaborate. "Well I came from that direction, which leads to the main paved path that circles the par--"

Suddenly, a scream cut through the air. She snapped her mouth shut immediately and tried to pinpoint which direction it had come from. It hadn't been a very feminine scream... but deeper. More of a deep tenor than a shrill alto. The sound put her instantly on edge.

"....what was that?" More importantly, where'd it come from? She didn't want to be anywhere near whatever was going on.

"Uh...That way, I think." Danny winced, giving her an apologetic look as she startled - that hadn't been his intention. "Well I came from that direction, which leads to the main paved path that circles the par--"

He heard the scream the same moment she did, and he whipped around, instantly alert, attempting to pinpoint the source of the sound. A threat to somebody else may very well be a threat to him, and it never hurt to have the element of surprise.

Sadly, that also meant he'd feel super guilty if he left the woman here on her own.

"...what was that?" she asked, clearly on edge.

Danny turned to face her again. "Okay, look. If you have watched any horror movie ever, you'll know that stereotypically I, who goes to search for the victim, dies before the bad guy comes after you. Therefore, I suggest we go together, because I'm a better fighter than your average teenage jock. But if you want, here." He took out his knife, sliding it easily out of its sheath and twirling it before placing it down on the bench next to the girl. "Uh, pointy end away from you, I guess. Bye!"

He walked briskly off into the direction of the scream.

It was a brief amount of time before he came across a jogger lying by the side of the road. Reluctant to touch, Danny neared the body, trying to discern whether the man was still alive or not from just sight. He glanced back, hoping that the woman had followed, but still unsure.

"Okay, look. If you have watched any horror movie ever,"

Okay, that was not a good way to start a response in this case. Her eyes widened immediately and her spine stiffened. Horror movies? They were one of her favorite forms of entertainment. Certainly she could envision all sorts of masked serial killers or ghastly Syfy monsters lurking in the nearby shadows, just waiting for a chance to pounce...

"... you'll know that stereotypically I, who goes to search for the victim, dies before the bad guy comes after you. Therefore, I suggest we go together, because I'm a better fighter than your average teenage jock. But if you want, here."

Or, in some cases, the one who chooses to stay put gets axed in the back while waiting for the hero to return. Heck no. Not today. She eyed the way she'd come warily. Then, he whipped out a flippin' knife and casually plopped it down on the bench beside her. And with the oh-so wise words of how to use said knife, he was off.

"Ohhellno!" Hopping away from the blade at first, because who knew where it had been and who it had stabbed, she watched him speed walk off and bristled. She wasn't about to go off alone with a murderer on the loose. And, on a lesser scale, she'd feel bad if the weird-knife-dude died alone in the bushes. Slightly. Enough to spur her to grab the knife delicately between her thumb and pointer finger like it was infected with something, and rush after him.

"Hey! Don't you know you can't just wander around throwing these things at strang--" She'd caught up with him rather quick, but stopped in her tracks the moment she saw the form on the ground at his feet. Her words froze in her throat as she briefly froze up, glancing from the stranger to the prone jogger as if trying to discern if he'd done it, before she tossed the notion out. She opened her mouth to hesitantly ask him if the jogger was alright, or alive for that matter, when she was stopped once more.

There was a.... singing... coming from somewhere. A deep, masculine voice humming a tune she'd never heard before. Suddenly, her attention was captured and stuck fast to the sound. Everything else faded into unimportant, including the jogger and the knife-bearing stranger.

"...What's that sound? It's so beautiful..." Without really knowing where she was going, she turned and headed off to her left, with a dreamy, dazed depression on her face and the knife still gently gripped in her hand.

"Hey! Don't you know you can't just wander around throwing these things at strang--"

The woman didn't finished her sentence, trailing off as her eyes caught on the prone jogger. She glanced in between Danny and the other man, as if asking him if he did it, and he had the decency to not flip out at her and instead look vaguely affronted. Clearly, though, she dismissed that idea, and they both went back to staring at the body in confusion. But when she opened her mouth to say something, he heard some more sounds from the forest. Not a scream, this time, but... singing? A woman's voice, clear and beautiful, and Danny found himself unable to do anything except gape silently into the distance where the sound was coming from.

"...What's that sound? It's so beautiful..." So she heard it too. Even while under the voice's spell, old habits die hard, and Danny trailed after the woman - if there was any danger, she better go first. And she still had his knife, so she should be fine, right?

Her sudden fascination with the voice was unnerving to some part of her, somewhere in the back of her mind. Generally unless it was art or an animal, she could care less. Instantaneous obsession should have triggered warning flags... but in this case everything in her brain was utterly devoted to finding the owner of that voice and... and then she didn't know what. She'd figure that part out later.

Marching through shrubbery in spandex running shorts wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, nor was tripping over a hidden root and landing hard on one knee in the dirt. She was just lucky she hadn't landed on the knife in her hand, really.

Not too far off, once she emerged from the bushes, was hands-down the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. Which was weird, because her taste in men tended to shifted around restlessly... and she couldn't pinpoint exactly what about this guy she liked the most. It was almost like he kept shifting ever so slightly to adapt to her rapidly swinging preferences. But... that was impossible. Or at least that's what her brain was telling her. He was pretty, so stop thinking and just go say hi.

"....H-hi." She didn't know why, but she was all of the sudden nervous and panicked. Guys normally didn't have this effect on her. Well, save for her boyfriend.

... Her boyfriend. Oh gosh, she'd totally forgotten about him. Here she was ogling a strange dude, and she had a man already! But he's waaaay across the country. Her brain butted in again, There's nothing wrong with talking to another guy. Or drooling over him. Right. Her brain had a point there. No harm in looking, right.

The singing stopped, and Shelby felt her knees tremble when the man looked over at her. His blue...er green?... She couldn't tell, but his eyes locked onto her and she felt her stomach flutter. She had to mentally remind herself that she had a boyfriend again. Boyfriend Boyfriend BOYFRIEND.

"Why... Hello there." The man greeted, before his gaze swept past her to the boy who'd been trailing after her. A smile tugged his lips, and she felt a surge of unexplained, violent jealousy rush through her. "It's so nice to have an audience. Please, come and sit. Make yourselves comfortable."

Smiling like a dope, Shelby staggered forward two steps before stopping again. She'd been overwhelmed by the warmth in his voice, by his sheer presence, that she almost hadn't noticed the form of another prone jogger by the man's feet. This time a female. Caution flared briefly, before the man smiled again and crooked one finger at her. She hesitated long enough to gulp and flush furiously. BOYFRIENDBOYFRIENDBOYFRIEND!!

"...I-is she okay..?"

Even as he calmly made his way through the undergrowth, Danny couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Never before had he felt this powerful urge to do anything, really, and it tickled at his subconscious. He couldn't do anything about it, though, still locked in the voice's spell, and so continued anyway.

He only started consciously considering what was wrong in this picture when he saw the other girl trail after the voice too. She didn't seem like she swung that way, which confused Danny a bit. But when he pulled into the clearing, those thoughts all but disappeared, instead replaced with something more along the lines of "holy sh*t."

The most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen was standing in the middle of the clearing, looking down on another unconscious jogger. When she smiled at the other girl from before, Danny felt a horrific rush of jealousy that he couldn't explain, but when the woman looked back at him, he could've sworn he saw the same expression pass over the girl's face as well.

"...I-is she okay..?"

The woman's focus honed back in to the girl from before, and although the rush of jealousy came again, it was a little bit weaker somehow. What he had left of local reasoning told him it was because the woman's focus wasn't on him anymore, but he brushed that thought away as ridiculous.

Though... he felt weaker himself, for some reason. He couldn't figure out exactly how or why, but it felt a bit like crashing after binge drinking caffeine, a nauseatingly slow drain of energy from his senses. The only reason he even noticed it was because he'd been around long enough to realize that this wasn't normal. Incredibly beautiful woman focusing on another woman with an unconscious jogger at her feet while energy drained from him? He wasn't completely lucid at this point, but alarm bells (more like weak handbells) started to go off.

"Hey," he said all of sudden, brows furrowing in confusion. "That jogger. And the one from before. And that scream, was that you?" His thoughts were disjointed, but he was getting somewhere, at least.

The man's lips tweaked up in one of the most handsome smirks she'd ever seen. No, not a smirk. A grin maybe? Smirking just seemed so... so underhanded. This man looked like the literal definition of an angel. He could do no harm.

She took a wobbly step toward him, feeling suddenly very tried. She'd been jogging too hard, for too long it seemed. Curious though. She'd made sure to try and pace herself.

"My dear boy, what scream?" The vision before her questioned, chuckling good naturally. As if there wasn't someone passed out at his feet. Shelby felt a flare of anger prick at her when he directed his attention somewhere else. She wanted to be the center of his attention, for some reason... one she rightly couldn't explain.

"And her? She'll be okay. Poor dear is just sleeping."

...Why would she be sleeping? Shelby's brain questioned, before the doubt at the man's statement was suddenly and violently squished. Her legs gave out from under her and she collapsed to her knees. Bracing herself on her hands, she panted and tried to shake the sudden weariness away. The man angled a half smile her way, before taking a few steps in the other boy's direction.

"What is your name, hmm?" Shelby couldn't see him anymore. Neither could she see the guy who'd given her the knife, or the body of the other jogger. She was staring blankly at the grass in front of her face, sweat dripping down her brow as she tried in vain to battle back the sudden exhaustion.

What Shelby didn't know was that the man was no regular human male. He wasn't even male, for that matter. He was a gender-less mutant who spent his waking time draining the life force from victims who fell under his 'spell'. Unfortunately for the ginger, she was human and had no way to battle against the mental draw of him. Slowly, the longer she sat and contemplated how beautiful the man was, he was dragging her closer to a slow and painful death.

The same could be said for her male companion, who had fallen for the Mutant's trick.... but, he had an advantage the human's did not. The gender-less mutant, who appeared as the most desirable image of a female he could imagine, was not aware that they both shared the X Gene.

"Your friend looks tired too. Perhaps we should leave her be... just you and I can find somewhere private together..."

Shelby managed a whimper, but little else.

"My dear boy, what scream?" the woman asked sweetly, smiling a little. Danny softened a bit, but still the thought stayed in the back of his mind that he had followed the scream here, and so how was it possible for her to have heard nothing?

"And her? She'll be okay. Poor dear is just sleeping." Sleeping. The sane part of Danny's brain was now screaming that something was wrong about this, so much was wrong with this, but Danny almost couldn't do anything.

"What is your name, hmm?" Well, one thing he couldn't do was speak, that was for sure. He was literally tongue-tied, even though he liked to think that he was more asexual than anything.

"Your friend looks tired too. Perhaps we should leave her be... just you and I can find somewhere private together..." Wasn't that suggestion a good one. Danny almost found himself nodding in agreement, but caught himself just in time. He was fighting with himself, now, part of him wanting to follow the woman, the other part screaming at him to take another look at this situation. The girl from before looked like she was on the brink of unconsciousness, but that didn't make sense, because she had been fine mere minutes ago. Nervously, his fingers started moving, his left hand unconsciously snapping quietly.

Well, maybe not unconsciously. Because when Danny, hit by a sudden wave of dizziness, reached out a hand to support himself on a tree, it was his left hand, where the electrical gauntlet had just been activated by his maybe-not-entirely-accidental gesture.

The tree caught fire.

Suddenly, Danny's mind cleared. The orange flames were roaring their way up the plant, and some of the grass around the source had been incinerated, briefly burning his ankle. But the pain was enough to jerk him out of his trance, and he realized with horror that he had almost fallen prey to what must have been another mutant. Snapping his fingers, he deactivated his gauntlet again, and tried to think up his next course of action.

He whipped his head around, trying to catch sight of the girl from before, who had his knife. Even if he'd just set part of Central Park on fire, as the flames were spreading now, getting rid of this other mutant was the highest priority. Catching sight of her, he darted over, seizing his knife and picking her up in one fluid movement. She wasn't too heavy, so he awkwardly threw her in the general direction of the other side of the clearing from where the fire was.

Unwilling to fall under the woman's spell again, he smoothly sliced the knife over his left forearm, a thin trail of blood beading up from the cut. It wasn't too deep, but deep enough to sting and throb, and that anchored him enough to not fall back into the trance. He settled into combat position, snapping to activate his glove, facing the woman with narrowed eyes. Her move now.

The woman's smile faltered for a moment, but she easily forced it back into place. Not every meal was as willing and easy as the human over there; some she had to put a bit more work into. She didn't even flinch when he managed to catch the tree on fire, choosing instead to focus her attention solely on him. He was struggling; fighting against the inevitable.

Shelby felt a brief lessening of the exhaustion, but not by much. She was hardly able to do anything when she was suddenly plucked up and tossed away like a rag doll. The landing hurt, but oddly enough she started to feel a lot less tired now that she was suddenly further from the gorgeous man.

Said man, or woman rather, eyed the knife in Danny's have with clear distaste, and a trace of fear. "What's this then?" She kept her voice calm enough, but on the inside she was plotting an escape. Things had fallen out of her control, but she'd already eaten enough for one day. Lowering her voice, she smirked once more. "I would suggest you put that blade away like a good little boy. We wouldn't want anyone getting killed, now would we?"

Her voice was low enough the human wouldn't be able to properly hear. He did glance at her however, and she groaned suddenly. "I can still draw from her at this distance. If you so much as take a step toward me, I will kill them both."

Her attention returned to the knife bearing teen. She meant Shelby and the other jogger of course, who apparently hadn't succumbed quite yet.

Danny struggled as much as he could against the allure of the woman's voice - he'd read books, and generally the hero would remember his true love at home, and boom, he was saved. Not as much could be said for an effectively asexual mutant who'd lived so long that everybody he knew was dead.

He dropped the knife.

He'd done it without even realizing, and at first he reacted with horror, thinking that he'd fallen under her spell again, having heard her faintly tell him to drop it. But then he realized that while he'd been fighting against the mental force, his inborn reflexes had told him to drop the weapon to protect the two innocents nearby. He cursed himself for seemingly developing a conscience at the most horrible times. It'd be nothing for him to just run away and save himself, and there'd been situations in which he had done just that. But in this one, he had literally nothing to lose, except his life - and oh wait. He'd done that already. Hundreds upon thousands of times.

So he started to speak, trying to placate the woman. "Hey," he said, his voice cracking a little as he tried to speak even as he fought against his enemy's iron will. "Leave them alone, okay? See, I can tell you're a mutant. I can also tell that those two -" and he motioned to the girl and the unconscious jogger "- are entirely human. But guess what? I'm not. We're in the same boat together. So what do you say we talk this out, mutant-to-mutant? Nobody has to kill each other. I give you my word I won't kill you." And, while she might not know it, his word meant quite a lot. He had been trained in Japan at one point, and they cared quite a bit about honor.

The mutant considered his proposition for a moment. He had dropped the knife... and he didn't look like he was gearing up for a fight, like he had before. Glancing back over at the groaning redheaded girl, it considered it's choices.

It had enough energy to keep it full for a while. It didn't need to finish them off, like it had other unfortunate humans. It could very well take it's leave and let them go back to their boring, pathetic lives. Well, save for the mutant standing opposite of him. That one was resisting its natural pull... fighting back against it, even though he should rightly be trapped within a mental haze of delirious longing.

That one was dangerous.

"...Talk?" She muttered, still using the image of a lovely woman to hide true self away from him. The image did flicker though, in the mutants uncertainty. Quick flicks of grey skin, or the flash of a featureless face that could easily be blamed on a trick of the eye.

It could talk. It could talk, and then leave. Or...

...or it could eat him. Behind it's mask, the mutant wriggled in anticipation.

He was different than the other victims. The boy was stronger, he had much more life behind the eyes. Yes.. yesss. It was sure that if it sucked that energy out of the boy, it wouldn't need to eat for months! It would vanish back into normal life until the stirrings of a crazed park serial killer died down, then it would crawl back out and feed again.

"Girl... sweet child, come here."

A voice reached through the haze and Shelby suddenly found the energy to stand. She was breathing hard, her gaze was unfocused and nearly blank. She could still hear that unearthly voice though... and if she squinted, she could see the beautiful man in all his glory.

The boy was in the way, though.

Staggering at first, then step by step, she moved forward toward them.

"This boy, he means to harm me! You must get rid of him! Help me!" There was an urgency in his voice that struck her deep. She lurched forward, toward where Danny was standing, while the mutant pulling her strings focused on Danny with renewed vigor. Malicious intent hung heavy on the air.

Grey skin. A featureless face. Danny was seeing flashes of what must be the mutant's true form, and he felt a faint glimmer of hope and surprise that his plan might actually work.

Then he sensed a subtle shift in expression, and he was almost ninety percent sure that talking had just fled the other mutant's vocabulary.

"Girl... sweet child, come here." That was bad. That sounded very bad. The girl started to stumble towards the enemy mutant, and Danny stiffened in anticipation.

"This boy, he means to harm me! You must get rid of him! Help me!"

Oh, sh*t.

Danny easily sidestepped the clumsy tackle from the girl, and racked his brain for ways to get out of this situation with minimal civilian casualties. The easiest method seemed to be to kill the mutant. But as he was about to reach for his knife, a wave of exhaustion passed over him, and he realized that the other mutant was redoubling her attack. That was problematic. What to do now?

He did the only thing left - with the remaining dregs of his quickly sapping energy, he threw himself at the mutant, hitting the suicide button on his gauntlet right before he made contact, ensuring that she would get hit with the full force of the blast should she stay put. Right before his flying tackle, though, he tried to shove the other girl as hard as he could to the side. He may have missed entirely, he was so tired, but he hoped she'd get out of the way in time.

Mind cloudy with fog, actions slowed by confusion, Shelby wouldn't have been all that surprised that the boy had dodged her. Right at the moment she didn't even know fully what she was doing... the beautiful man was just so pretty, and he said he needed help, and when had she ever said no to helping others really in need?

...well, plenty of times actually. But she was just so compelled to make this not one of those times.

He stepped easily out of the way, and she flopped to her knees from the effort the sluggish surge had taken. Gasping for shallow breaths, she struggled back to her feet and turned to-- he shoved her. Forcefully pushed into her hard enough that she jerked back with a violent stumble, hit the dirt and rolled, before coming to a rest on her side. She stayed down, this time.

The mutant, having been watching the show with a twisted little smirk on her lips,suddenly realized her distraction wasn't working as she had planned. Her image flickered again uncertainly, and her eyes widened in fear.

Shortly before Danny hit her full force, the illusion fizzled out entirely. What now stood before him was a tall, lanky grey-skinned being. No facial features were present on it's face; not eyes nor nose or mouth. It was a perfect canvas for it's illusions, having no defining features itself.

It's world erupted in pain then. Bright singing fire. It had no physical mouth to scream, but surely it's voice would echo in the minds of those it had been attacking...


(Sorry for the belated post! Wanna time-skip ahead a little? Or, if it would take too long, wanna end here?)