It was a beautiful Fall day. Far too pleasant to be cooped up inside studying. So as it was she was outside. Studying. Sipping a massive takeout cup of coffee on a park table. Children played games in the background, couples walked hand in hand, hipsters walked their purebred oddities and photographers shot the colourfully dressed trees. It was a surprise that she had the table to herself really, considering how many other people had the same idea regarding indoorness. The sky above was clear and dotted with the occasional kite or model aeroplane, a video drone buzzed about like a giant airborne spider – gathering footage for someone’s blog or other. The grass was still a luscious green, scattered leaves skittering on the occasional breeze. The air smelled like earth and pond and from somewhere not too far the drifting smell of doughnuts. The hot coffee took the edge from the need to wear her jacket and she sipped the creamy treat steadily between turning pages.


She turned the pages slowly, she had read this chapter before and was just refreshing her memory. Again. Whenever time passed without needing a particular bit of information it started slipping away. In a critical moment she couldn’t afford to be slippery, her supervisor needed her to be on the ball. Or the drip. Or the stitches, depending on the situation. Broken bones were commonplace for her now, and many of the illnesses which cripple the elderly, but snakebites – those she was rusty on, and with the cooler weather any snakes out and about might start taking refuge in sheds where people needed to get their rakes from, or even in homes. She needed to be fresh just in case.


For anyone glancing at the full-page image across from the text they may well think she was reading a gorey graphic novel. This was a bite that had been left untreated, and served as a warning to get people into professional care as soon as possible. Unfortunately a lot of what she saw seemed to belong in a gorey graphic novel.

Finally, it was officially fall. Ty's favorite part of the year was met with a grin as he'd tugged on his green hoodie on his way out this morning. However, this wasn't a day off for the lad. After all, bills had to be paid and all that jazz.

However, today, Ty was taking a...different...approach to his duties. Today, the ginger sat, legs dangling from a tree as he looked about the park from his perch, just relax--er...scouting. That's it. He was scouting for pockets to pick. Nearby was a woman reading some book with bloody pictures in it, and he was kind of intrigued by it. She was no target, of course, but the book was kinda cool, right?

The breeze picked up, and the little troublemaker had to admit, it was rather...pleasant. Maybe today would be a good day to take off after all. (You know, since he was working sooo hard...)

However, though Ty wasn't really sure what went wrong...actually, it was quite obvious what went wrong, as the air around the thief was filled with a quiet yet threatening creak, followed by a loud snap.

The next thing Ty knew, he was lying flat on his back, wind knocked out of him, sore just about everywhere. He groaned out a string of expletives.

A light breeze ruffled the pages and she smoothed them and then her hair without looking up. Flip. Read Summery. Flip. The next chapter was about splinting broken bones, and she already knew that. The pages turned more quickly as she skimmed through looking for the start of the next.

Creeeeak Cah-Crack.

She looked up startled at the sound, just in time to see a body hit the ground with a thud. Ouch. Instincts kicked in and she was standing over him in a moment as he lay there with his eyes and mouth wide open. The pictures of the broken bones flashed through her mind. A spine was such a bad injury that even children knew not to step on cracks, just in case. The laughter of said children playing in the background may or may not have been related to the tumble, it was difficult to tell with her back to them.

“Are you alright?”

Swearwords. Many swearwords. Some sort of mushed in on each other and made whole new swearwords. Good. If he could swear he could breathe. She skimmed over his body with her eyes, nothing was visibly skewed the wrong direction or spurting blood. She wanted to check his eyes for concussion, but thought it might be rude to stick her face in on his to look at his pupils. Not to mention dangerous. That was a specific line in her training she knew. If you’re close enough to a conscious junkie’s eyes to tell they’re a junkie, you’re too close.

“Do you need a hand?”

She offered hers.

Every city in the world is unique, but some are more special than others. Kai had known this at the age of 14 when he'd first promised himself to NYC, and he knew it now half a decade later. New York was a city like no other.

It was the first day of fall and felt nothing like it. The day was slightly overcast while still managing to be too warm, and Kai had wiggled out of his hoodie and tied it around his shoulders in the manner of a cape. That and his ever-present smirk were quite the look on the teen- he knew it, too, and didn't care.

A city of lunatics and dwindling tourists, and he was taking a walk in the park. Like half the population of the city, he was pretty sure. New York's parks were infamous for the simple reason that they were in New York City. People in New York City met people in parks. That was the truth of the thing, so maybe he could actually meet someone today.

If not...well, there were plenty of things to do in a park. Like play with a dog or something boring like that, or sit at a picnic table and examine gory photographs. There was a lady doing that. Actually.

And if the gray-eyed adventurer happened to step over the form of a hobo-looking redhead who'd conveniently dropped out of a tree into his path, that too was a coincidence. It served him right for sitting in the creaky thing in the first place.

His smile decidedly more amused, Kai brushed past the lady on the scene. What now?

Well, this was rather embarrassing, as a few more Frankenstein'd swear words escaped his lips. This was not how he wanted to start his favorite season. Lying flat on his back, with a tree limb practically up his butt. Oh, and some jackass stepped over him, great.

"A hand, back, head, neck, chest..." he groaned, taking her hand. He allowed her to help him up, at least to a sitting position, anyway. For obvious reasons, he didn't feel like standing right now. His head, backside, and a few bones he didn't know he had seemed to each have their own pulse.

"Thanks...I was sure that ******* limb was sturdy enough to hold me...Well it was for awhile, anyhow..." A few more words


He sat back against the tree wincing with pain as he brushed the leaves and loose grass from his hair, which caused him more pain. "Thanks. I think I'll be okay," he grumbled as he went to stand up--and then sat right back down. "Or not..."

He sat and she was close enough now to glance at both eyes – both the same size irises and he seemed to be focussing on her face well enough. She turned her attention to the walker who ignored the plight of his fellow man entirely. Exasperated she called after him.

“Thanks for your help A-hole.”

She actually called him A-hole too, after all the words the redhead had used that was just about enough of the language for one day. Typical New Yorker. What would have happened if she hadn’t been there? How long would the park populous let the guy lay there before they did something about it? Probably an age, and then the thing would have been to rob him blind while he couldn’t do anything about it.

“A hand, back, head, neck, chest…” Good, so general all over ouch, not a specific sharp pain in one area. If the A-Hole had turned she would ask him to buy a bottle of icy water from the doughnut vendor and risk losing the fiver she held out if he wandered off. The ginger was working on a sizable egg on the back of his head from her guess though and cold was the best thing to put on that.

He had been sure the branch would hold him. Well, of course. Who would purposely climb on a risky branch? More expletives, clearer this time and not slurred at all. He was going to be fine.

But maybe in a minute. His body seemed to agree with her and kept him from getting up and wandering off to do more damage.

“Maybe just sit for a bit. What’s your name?”

It was the start of the standard questions – what’s your name, are you on any medication, is there someone you want me to call for you, are you allergic to anything – it was hard to even introduce herself these days without running through the checklist in her mind.

Swearing, then substitutionary swearing from the female. This was the way of life, was it not? Kai's leisurely pace as he strolled away from the scene belied his purpose, as did the laugh on his expression at the exasperated comment thrown after him.

Congratulating himself on his first badge of honor, he made his way back. A-hole? At least the guy could cuss right.

"You're welcome," Drawled the teen, with mock seriousness as he handed over the ice water- well, drawled as well as he dared although it was still about twice as fast a regular human being would likely speak. "Oh, what would the world do without me?"

That was still too much at a time, maybe. Kai let the ginger and the woman he labeled as a nurse for no other reason than the vibes she gave off eye each other for a moment before speaking again.

Just in case she didn't want to keep calling him an A-hole, although that was questionable, "I'll tell you if you ask me."

Kirsi dangled her legs from the bench, frowning as they came up short. She was of the age now when growing taller had become a pressing matter in the back of her mind, and even though she had more control than most over her childish instincts, she still couldn't help but get irritated at the fact that she was tiny and short.

A few feet from her, children played, and their parents had seemed to believe that she was a harmless and lonely child and had sent them off to play with her, even though she ignored them. What did draw her attention was the loud crack, and then a thump, and then a bustle of movement punctuated with swearing. She turned to look at the source of the disturbance, noting that some idiot had fallen from a tree. Wasn't that lovely.

She was about to get ready to leave when a very menacing-looking figure blocked her sight of... well, everything. She had to crane her head back to see the tiny head perched upon the man's massive body.

"Hello there," he said nastily. "A little birdie told me that a nice man gave you something to give to another man who'd get it from you here. I'm that man."

"Really," Kirsi said blankly. He wasn't the courier. She knew that.

"Yeah," he said. "I need you to give it to me, okay?"

Kirsi let the shadow of a doubt flitter across her face, toying with the man a bit. He clearly thought she was some arbitrary girl Don Giovanni's men had picked off the street to deliver the folder. "But the nice man said you'd be with three other guys."

"I am," the man said immediately, and pointed at three different people situated at different areas in the park, inadvertently giving her the location of all of them. What an idiot. "I need you to give me the package now." Kirsi made it look as if she was starting to cave in and was believing his lies, and she could almost feel the wave of greed and excitement from the man attempting to steal from Don Giovanni, who was paying her six mil for this job.

Just as he became so confident that he could almost feel his grubby little fingers around the folder, Kirsi pulled back and shook her head violently. "No," she said. "You're not the right guy."

The man's face grew vicious all of the sudden, and he lunged for the folder that Kirsi was holding in her lap. "That folder is how I'm getting paid, punk," he snarled, and Kirsi screamed.

"Help!" she shouted, as loudly as she could. "He's trying to hurt me!"

"It's all right, I'm her dad, we're just playing around!" the man tried to shout over her screams. And wasn't he an idiot - as he grappled with her, Kirsi covering the folder with her whole body, she had taken out the three other men with neatly-placed pebbles. This one could be dispatched of in a more public manner - there were plenty of witnesses around, and hopefully one of them would be a Good Samaritan and publicly embarrass the man.

Great, the A-hole came back, and he was being even more of an A-hole. "Ty" he told the nurse-lady as he grabbed the limb, using it as a cane to help him to his feet.

Gripping it with his right hand, he began to focus, writing a silent-video-montage onto the branch for the next person to grab it to be assaulted
His eyes glowed red as his power worked, lasting maybe 30 seconds. It was dirty, but Ty was in no shape to fight fair.

There was another sound of distress nearby, but there was nothing Ty could do. So, he swung the limb for A-hole's gut. Part of him wanted to hit, the other wanted his shot to be blocked. Either way.

Ty. That was as far as they got into the introductions, because that was when the kid, a girl by the sound of it, screamed for help somewhere behind them. That was when Ty, to the great surprise of the other, got up.

"Stay close but get out of the way if you can't help!" Kai said, in half a breath. Already turning to pinpoint the location of the struggle as he spoke, he didn't see Ty's display of glowing red power until the branch was swinging his way. It caught him a glancing blow that served no purpose except to astound him. He grabbed and twisted and...froze as a nonsensical montage of black and white footage was imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

A horde of penguins winging their way into the sky, flying pigs, flying pajamas, flying waffles, and in sudden color a bloody dragon flying off into the sunset--

The teen didn't know what he would have done had it been any other time, but as it was he could only scramble onward to the rescue. "Either work with me or go kill yourself," were the gist of his next words. Decidedly less pleasant, though.

The eyes were a giveaway and Zinn stepped back, her hands reaching for her pockets where the latex gloves were housed. There was almost no research on transmissible mutant-only germs and illnesses, but she had no interest in being a case study in some textbook published down the road. She had barely slipped the first glove on when a girl screamed and the redhead, Ty, struggled to his feet with the help of the offending branch to assist. Suddenly he was swinging it a A-Hole, who initially tried to deflect, then stopped and stared, looking a little stunned. Then A-Hole snapped at Ty and started heading for the scuffle between man and child.

Zinn did what any self-respecting adult from an emergency services background would do. She called 911. From the look of things she may not have been the only one. There were several other adults with phones suddenly in their hands, equal parts filming the scuffle (for evidence!) and describing the scene into their mouthpieces. After her quick explanation to the operator and confirmation that someone was already dispatched she slipped her phone into her pocket and surveyed the scene. One man, one child, in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowded park. It was surely the most stupid place to try for a kidnapping. But still, smart and kidnapper weren’t synonymous in her mind.

“Hey!” She shouted out across the distance separating them, all too aware of how many of the people surrounding them might have weapons, guns, knives, mutations. The beautiful day in the park seemed suddenly tainted.

“If you’re her dad then let’s hear some proof. What’s her name? Date of birth? What’s her mother’s name? Her teacher?” She fired the questions off in fast succession. She didn’t need answers, she just needed to distract him until either the guys could restrain him or the cops arrived. Whichever came first. She kept a keen eye on the girl too. If she truly was this man’s daughter and was playing a prank, or trying to run away Zinn wanted to know where she was headed. The cops deserved as much information as she could give them.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Sirens always wailed in the distance. This was New York.

So some people, thankfully, had noticed her predicament and were causing just the right amount of chaos. The three now-dead corpses were going largely unnoticed in the face of what seemed to be an attempted kidnapping, which was great. But the man who really was supposed to pick up the folder from her was walking towards the chaos, and seemed to be strongly considering leaving. Kirsi had to make a statement, now, and that statement had to be about her capabilities and her ability to handle this situation if she wanted future employment with Don Giovanni and his mob.

Somebody was shouting at her attacker, trying to get proof of fatherhood, and the man was completely ignoring whoever it was in favor of just going for the folder and running. But he was very much startled when Kirsi suddenly turned to face him, eyes blank and emotionless, and said, "I'm getting tired of this game." And with that, she launched the man backwards a few feet, and he landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him. The reactive force had led to her feeling a force shoving her backwards against the bench, but it thankfully wasn't enough to break it or knock it over. The other courier had halted his retreat now, thankfully, and was watching Kirsi with an almost terrified reverence as she calmly stood up and walked over to her former attacker.

She really didn’t expect the sudden explosion of pain as the man fired a bullet into her leg, having been watching the courier instead of the man now pointing a gun at her. Instinctively, she had tried to slow the bullet without realizing it, but she hadn’t been fast enough to stop it, with it lodging an inch or so into her thigh. She let out a little cry of pain as the leg crumpled, and the man snarled something - ”F***ing mutie” - before moving the gun at her head and firing again.

This time, Kirsi was fast enough to intercept the shot. She whipped her hand up and the bullet halted in midair, hovering for a brief moment before she moved her hand and let it drop into her palm. The man’s expression had now, very suddenly, morphed to fear, and gradually to terror as Kirsi raised her palm, with the bullet in it, pointing her arm at him.

And she launched the bullet, the piece of metal burying itself in his skull, accompanied by a bang as the bullet broke the sound barrier.

And now on to the more pressing issue - her being shot. She couldn’t go to the hospital, obviously, considering she had just killed a man and there were three other corpses in the same area. Focusing on her thigh, she moved her hand so the bullet’s trajectory would have been perpendicular to her palm, and she nudged the bullet out with her power. It fell out of the wound with an unpleasant noise, and Kirsi caught it and pocketed it, not wanting her blood to be left at the scene. They were low-caliber bullets, thankfully, so the wound wasn’t large, and thanks to her timely intervention, the wound wasn’t deep. She heard footsteps and looked up to see the courier nearing hesitantly, eyes flicking between her and the corpse. Kirsi slid the folder out of her coat and the man’s eyes immediately lit upon it, and he placed the briefcase next to her. Without a word, Kirsi handed over the folder and the courier ran off.

Now. She had maybe two or three more minutes until the police arrived, considering how many people were calling them, so she busied herself with wrapping a makeshift bandage around her leg with the remains of the dead man’s shirt, unconcerned about being interrupted, as she was sure she’d scared everyone into not bothering her.

So many phones out...all of them calling 911. Cops. Yet another string of expletives left Ty's mouth, this time more in a quiet hiss; and when he ran out of swear words, he started making some up. His body was screaming at him, and the impact from swinging that limb didn't do him any favors. And now, sirens were filling the air as all of this came crashing down on him at once.

He wanted to help the girl--sure she just killed like four people, but she was just a kid, right? Then there was the teenager who deserved an ass kicking. But then there were cops on the way, and Ty had a few outstanding warrants. Stealing, murder, grand theft auto, evading police, resisting arrest...not to mention that six-inch stiletto he kept on his person was illegal in New York City...And then there was the fact that his body was wracked with pain, and he was using a stick for support. "Yee-<expletive>-ha..."

He made his way to the nurse-lady first. "Look, I gotta git," he said, his southern tongue really dripping off of each word here. "But thanks for the help." Then, as he walked past the A-hole, he merely grumbled. "I owe you an ass kicking." Looking back, he made a motion to the girl that she could follow, if she wished, but he really couldn't stick around here.

He didn't know if he was making the right decision, but he knew he was making the decision that would keep him from 50 years in jail...

And so, our hero villain favorite redheaded troublemaker hobbled off down the street, using a tree-limb for a cane.

There was something wrong about this scene, Kai knew it. Kai knew it the moment the kid turned to face her attacker and he saw the careful emptiness of her expression... but by then it was too late then to do anything but stand by and watch as everything happened all at once.

The man with the gun was on the ground with a bullet through his skull. The girl was wrapping up her wound with the remains of his shirt. All around them people panicked and 911 had been called at least a dozen times, and in typical hobo fashion Ty had had to go; Kai couldn't have cared less.

The obvious choice, at this point? To run. But that would put him on the same level as Ty and he couldn't just, not with all these idiots standing around. Instead the teen with his hoodie cape became the hero of this story: He grabbed the nurse lady by the shoulders and shoved her on her way, through the crowd.

"The folder," he enunciated, "Do something about the folder and get out of here!"

The crowd listened, if only mostly to the latter part, but amid those who stayed Kai went back to the girl. She couldn't have been more than eight or nine, the same age as the kids that had always jumped rope outside his house, the kids he'd liked because they didn't demand constant conversation. But he was afraid of this girl and he would not be.

The gray-eyed hero A-hole laid his glasses to the side and knelt beside the white-blonde head, waiting for her to either meet his eyes or put a rock through his brain. "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," he began (then continued.)

Zinn was by all accounts a clever person, she had done well in school, was still doing well at school, picked things up quickly. She felt out of her depth here. Her brain was going around and around. Technically the girl was injured, she should be helping, winding a bandage around the injury, elevating it until it could be properly cleaned and stitched if needed. Instead she was turning, watching the packet of information getting away. The packet of information that was worth dying for apparently.

It was the shove that decided her. Her feet were moving after the folder. Away, away from the mutie kid who thought it was fine to shoot people in the head in broad daylight in front of families in the park. Her phone was in her hand again, her textbook forgotten.

“Hello, yes this is Zinnia again from the park, I was speaking with operator 907 before. He said to call back if things escalated?”

She was now jogging behind the folder guy, trying to keep him in sight without being too obvious that she was following him. Things had escalated for sure, now there were guns involved. And mutants. She was no athlete, and already she could feel her heart pounding against her chest. If this was a water-based chase she maybe had a chance, but in a running match when she’d already drunk half a Grande Frappe, it was a sure thing that she would lose out.

“Yes, at least one dead, he shot the kid in the leg so she’ll be wounded. She has some sort of bullet mutation – she shot him in the head with his own bullet… I don’t know... I didn’t see. There’s another guy fleeing the scene with a folder that the kid had. He’s headed towards the Umpire Rock. Should I follow?”

The operator advised her against it, and she was relieved. If they had told her to keep following she would have, against her better judgement. But with the reassurance that officers were closing in on the situation, and that it was too dangerous to follow an unknown man fleeing a crime scene she slowed to a walk and then stopped entirely. Doing her best not to huff and puff down the phoneline too much she described the fleeing man, the child and what she was wearing, and their respective locations when she last saw them. After she had done so she slid her phone back into her pocket and went to try and find Ty, he probably shouldn’t be shaking himself around too much. He really should be sitting somewhere icing his injuries.

~~~~~~~~~

At the station there was a flurry of barely concealed excitement. This was it, a confirmed mutant-related crime. They were going to debut him, and in the middle of the bustling park no less. In the back of the speeding car ATS00053 waited patiently. They would arrive on the scene in moments.

It was time to go catch some bad guys.