There was nothing more relaxing than a nice walk in Central Park.
Usually.

Javier's shop was close to the park, so whenever he felt like taking a break, getting some air, and practicing some self-care, that was where he headed. It was not exactly less crowded than the rest of the city - it was New York's favorite green spot, after all - but people were distributed in a larger area, and even the ones one tended to run into were friendlier and more relaxed: Joggers, dog walkers, yoga and tai chi people... Javier had a small smile on his face as he strolled along. It was nice summer day, and he, being his own boss, allowed himself an afternoon off. Maybe ice cream? Booker was busy at work, so he had all the time in the world to do whatever he felt like. Breathing in the scent of flowers, Javier felt his heart rate slow to a comfortable pace.

And then the giant lemur came out of nowhere.

Roxie didn’t care for Central Park. Living in the city, she had grown used to looking at the sleek grey buildings and glass that surrounded her on all sides. Additionally, it was the only part of civilization where she actually felt like a living, breathing human being. A trip out to the country or even through the expanse green of the park was actually quite traumatizing for the ex-dancer. She didn’t know the full layout of her abilities but she did know that the further away from the city that she was, the weaker she got. If that continued she eventually would slip into a coma.

It was a not a fun experience and certainly not fun to figure out. But, in many ways, Roxie just treated it like a disability. There were things she couldn’t do, places she couldn’t go, and she accepted that. She would still find ways to enjoy her life whenever she could. That didn’t mean she couldn’t test the parameters of her abilities though. And that was what she was doing right now.

Central Park Zoo was, as you guessed, in the middle of Central Park. As he strolled from the edge of the concrete onto the pathways leading in, she could already feel her body struggling to maintain a hold of her powers. The reached out like clawing hands towards the infrastructure of the city behind her before digging down into the ground for any resemblance of the structures she was used to taking her strength from. But even as her steps felt a little off, Roxie pushed on. She needed to test herself.

Eventually Roxie made it towards the gates of Central Park and she felt a small breath of relief pass through her body. There were enough structures and infrastructure here to at least sustain her a bit longer than being caught out in the greens. It wasn’t by any means perfect but it should be enough to ensure that she didn’t pass out before the end of the day.

So far the zoo was nice. People were walking, laughing, drinking water or eating ice cream. Roxie herself even indulged in a scoop of Rocky Road, but it would be short lived. As she tried to take a calmly breath and move around the corner to follow the pathway, she jumped at what made absolutely no sense. There was a shape...a lemur shape...a giant lemur shape.

”Holy mother of god…” she whispered. It was just then that the panicked ape shrieked and flung an arm out, sending a hot dog vendor’s cart flying towards an unsuspecting individual. Dropping her cone, Roxie sprang into action, effortlessly catching the man around the waist and sent them both sprawling onto the ground with a audible OOMPH!! Star’s danced in Roxie’s eyes. Dammit, she wasn’t as fully strength, but it would have to be enough. She whipped her head to the man she had pushed. ”Are you okay?!”

Giant lemurs did not compute very well. Javier was in no way a wildlife expert, but he was fairly sure that no lemur grew as large as the size of a truck, and yet here this one was, wreaking havoc among the zoo visitors and bystanders. The shriek had been magnified as well; it was only a matter of time before the cops showed up, possibly with the X-men in tow. But as fast as reaction time tended to be when Central Park was involved, there was no help in sight as of yet. The lemur smashed a hot dog cart and sent someone flying... the man being caught by a woman with surprising ease. Javier, on his part, kept an eye on the lemur, that proceeded to poke at a gift shop booth, vacated by a screaming clerk.

When Javier was a little boy, his mother taught him never to hurt animals. We don't hold the cat by the tail, sweetheart. Javier was generally not a person to hurt anyone, animal or otherwise, but restraining a cat was very different from restraining... that. Trying to make the best of a bad situation, Javier grabbed the dangling, striped lemur tail, and held fast, keeping the animal from moving forward. It worked for a while... then his feet began to slide, and he had to brace himself against the corner of a building. Eventually, the lemur realized his tail was caught... and turned around, with large golden eyes, to look.

"Uh-oh... help?..."

It was weird. With all the crap that goes on in this city and something still occurs to surprise her. She has seen people fly, seen rifts in the fabric of reality, and still the thing that surprised her the most was seeing a giant lemur running through the Central Park Zoo. Seriously, her life just couldn’t get any weirder. But rather than continue to stand around and let weird just happen, she knew that she needed to act. Therefore, when vendor and cart went flying in her direction, she was the first to step up and immediately pluck the pedestrian from thin air.

Kneeling down to avoid more debris being tossed around, she turned to the older vendor who seemed too shellshocked for words. After ensuring that he was okay, she stood up and turned back to the…”menacing” creature as it began to lurk about the zoo in a confused panic. Once she heard the man’s fleeing footsteps, Roxie rolled her shoulder and started to advance on the beast. She didn’t want to hurt the creature as it looked more confused than menacing, but how else was she going to stop it?

Just as the lemur turned and began to move towards her, it suddenly stopped, as it something were pulling it back from the opposite side. Roxie lifted her brow in confusion until she took a few steps behind and found it wasn’t something holding the creature back, but someone.

>>"Uh-oh... help?..."

And he was losing his grip.

She was in the middle of Central Park. There weren’t many buildings around but there was enough infrastructure to at least make her stronger than the average man. She would only have to hope that it would be enough to actually do something.

So without another thought she bolted towards the man, her boots thundering against the ground, the flat of her stomach expose over the seam of her black jeans and the high cut tank top. A silver necklace bounced against her chest as she ran forward. When she got next to the man, she gave him an odd look before she reached around, grabbing the lemur further up by the tail and hauling him backwards. It seemed that with the both of them combined, they were doing something.

Her gaze snapped to the stranger and she smirked. ”You’re a strong one,” she grinned.

A woman came out of nowhere, breaking a path through the chaos, an unlike many other people around, she was not running away from the danger. Or... whatever a giant lemur was. Environmental hazard? Semantics aside, she skidded to a halt next to Javier an grabbed a hold of the lemur tail. The pull eased up at the extra set of hands, and Javier noted that she was surprisingly strong for her size.

>> ”You’re a strong one,”

'You are too" he said, quite surprised. His surprise was mirrored in the lemur eyes turned on them, large as truck tires and bright yellow. Now that two of them were tugging on the tail, they definitely had the animal's attention. It folded back over its tail, and muttered something to itself as it reached a large black hand out.

"Uh... now what?"

Roxie didn’t know what she was doing. She had fought loads of things before but there was something about this situation that was just...odd. Thugs, criminals, other mutants, she had fought all of that but this was something decidedly different. How does one go about fighting giant mutant animals? On top of which, the lemur didn’t see all that aggressive, it was more just panicking out of the sheer uncertainty of what was going on. Roxie had to admit that if the same happened to her she would be just as confused.

Even more interesting, though, was the handsome man who seemingly was trying to help. He was holding onto the tail of the lemur but he wasn’t being thrashed around as one would expect. Instead he was actually gripping the appendage and keeping the animal from escaping. But this was a job for two and Roxie was quickly to jump into it. With their combined efforts the beast was no longer advancing.

She couldn’t help but comment -- something that the other reciprocated.

>>'You are too"

Roxie smirked. That was fun. But now they were stuck with a giant lemur and with no idea what else to do about it. The two of them stayed close, trying to reign the animal in but it seemed that their efforts were only serving to antagonize it further. They needed to do something to fix this...

>>"Uh... now what?"

It was scared. It needed to settle down. Music wasn’t going to do it and food was...that would take too long. They would have to take a more direct approach. Roxie ground her teeth and shot the other a small smile. ”Think you can handle this for five seconds?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Letting go she let the other man take the full force of the lemur as it tried to escape from his grip. Using this Roxie ran forward, alongside the beast and balled up her fist. If they couldn’t soothe it then she would knock it the f**k out. She ran, hard and fast, until she was up near the creature’s face and leapt up. A battle cry on her lips, she lashed out with her fist, ready to drive it hard into the lemur’s cheek. She hoped it would be enough to knock it out…

>> ”Think you can handle this for five seconds?”

Could he? Questions like that tended to put Javier on edge. He had held the lemur before she got there, barely, but could he do it again? Could he do it long enough? What if his powers gave away like they usually did? Before if he could put any of his doubts into words, she had already let go. The lemur, startled by someone flying straight at it, jerked back, yanking on the tail, and subsequently Javier, who flew face first into the wall he had been bracing himself against.

"Ow!"

The next thing he knew, she had already made impact, and the lemur was going down hard. Especially hard for a large fluffy thing. Javier, rubbing his forehead, let go of the limp tail as he watched the spectacle unfold.

"You just... punched a lemur, didn't you."

What was she doing? She didn’t know what she was doing. Who could possibly know what they were doing in this situation? It wasn’t everyday that you were attacked in a zoo by a giant primate. But if there was one thing that Roxie knew about this world was that if you couldn’t talk yourself out of a situation, then you could certainly try punching your way out. The lemur wasn’t exactly leaving them any options.

She turned to her new comrade and inquired if he would be able to handle the beast for a just a few moments. It would have been polite to wait for an answer but she didn’t have it in her to wait. Instead she just let go, letting the mutant (really, what else COULD he be?) handle the beast’s tail as Roxie ran up to the side.

A flying leap and the beast was startled seeing her devil-may-care movement almost flicking its prisoner off its tail.

>>"Ow!"

She heard the gasp of pain but she didn’t have the time to check. Instead she reared back and lashed out with as much strength as she could muster. It wasn’t the strongest punch she could deliver, but it was the strongest that she could muster with her surroundings. Fist buried into fur as her knuckles connected with the tough flesh, making it concave before the beast let out a guttural cry of pain before falling away to its side.

Roxie landed expertly, straight on the balls of her feet, knees bending, and hands catching her against the concrete. She gulped, straightened up and gave a few cautious looks to the giant lemur. A second and she straightened up before cautiously kicking it with her toe. It didn’t stir.

>>"You just... punched a lemur, didn't you."

Her head snapped in the direction of the voice and she smirked as she spotted her comrade letting go of the tail. She moved towards him and nodded. ”I did. Seems effective too. Are you alright Mister…?” She waited for a name.

The lemur went down, and the woman landed in a practiced stance. It did not take a superhero expert to know that she bad been doing some athletic stuff for a long time, to stick a landing like that. Especially after laying out a giant lemur in the middle of Central Park.

>>”I did. Seems effective too. Are you alright Mister…?”

"Javier's fine" he waved a hand, the other rubbing his forehead. He was going to get a bump. And then he'd have to explain it to Booker. "Sorry it's just... my hand slipped." Easier to say than explaining how his powers went in and out in crucial moments. At least now they could look around and see where the giant lemur had come fr...

"PENGUIN!" Javier yelled, something he never imagined doing, and moved on instinct to tackle the woman who was right in the path of the giant toddling sea bird.

>>"Javier's fine...Sorry it's just... my hand slipped."

Roxie nodded as she watched the man give her a little wave as opposed to shaking her hand. She didn’t hold it against him, some people just didn’t like to shake hands. Javier was rubbing the back of his head, probably from being nearly knocked off the lemur and it’s massive tail. Still, if he could hold onto the beast for as long as he did, he should be able to take a blow or two to the head. He was probably fine.

”Well great to meet you, Javier. Glad that you were there to help when you were.” She grinned. He was a nice looking guy. And obviously he had some muscle to him. It was probably inappropriate for her thoughts to be heading in the direction that they were right now but…

>>"PENGUIN!"

She could scarcely finish her thought. The other man’s body collided with her’s and Roxie was sent sprawling into the ground with him firmly on top of her. Normally she was fine with things a bit rougher but even as he had his face buried into her chest and the thoughts of his last word ringing in her ears, she wasn’t prepared for what she saw. Waddling above them was a penguin; a giant penguin. A ear-splitting chirp flew from its beak as it continued on. Roxie lay there, back flat on the ground, a man’s face buried between her chest, and all she could do was stare dumbfounded as the beast lumbered on.

As she lifted her head, she caught Javier’s eye and gave him a confused look. ”What the hell is going on here?”

The lunge was more instinct than anything else. Something large and decidedly not normal was heading their way, so Javier did the only thing that his brain managed to scramble up - he pushed the woman out of harm's way. sadly, the whole move resulted in both of them falling, and him burying his face in her chest. Because of course.

For a moment, Javier was motionless, frantically trying to come up with the best course of action for getting up without putting face, hands, or any other body part to any more embarrassing places that they already were. Meantime, Roxie managed to process the shift in perspective.

>>”What the hell is going on here?”

Javier lifted his head, turned bright red, and managed to roll off her to the side.

"Sorry... Uh... giant animals coming out of the zoo?... I guess it's a mutant" he noted, looking at the penguin that was neither cute nor fluffy when scaled up "I'm sure the X-men will show up soon..."

Roxie hopped up the second that Javier disengaged from her girls. As much as she enjoyed the sensation, now certainly wasn’t the right time. First of all, she had just met him, and second there was the fact that there was a giant penguin waddling through the emptying zoo. They needed to tackle the priorities first, clearly. Once Javier was up, Roxie stood and dusted herself off, cautiously watching the penguin that, thankfully, wasn’t being all that much of a threat.

Though she would have flirted after having practically been motorboated, she restrained herself and instead inquired what was going on.

>>"Sorry... Uh... giant animals coming out of the zoo?... I guess it's a mutant"

”Yeah, no shit,” she smirked. She had to catch herself before falling over thanks to the penguin’s massive step. Her gaze snapped away from the penguin and to Javier. Out of ideas she shrugged her shoulders, seemingly at a loss for what to do next...

>>"I'm sure the X-men will show up soon..."

Roxie sighed. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, maybe Javier was right. She could feel her powers popping in and out, who knows how much longer she could maintain it. Carefully she turned back to her new friend, satisfied that the Penguin wasn’t hurting anyone.

”Okay. We...just wait. The X-Men will be here soon. Meanwhile, we’ll just...manage and make sure everyone gets OUUUUUUTTTTTTT!”

Her voice trailed off. A fox, a very large fox, seized her by the mid-section, growled and began to carry her deeper into the zoo. She snapped, throwing her fists into the beast’s face but her powers were waning now and she was barely making any damage. Worst of all, she could feel her skin scraping against the beast’s teeth. A few more seconds and she was at a break risk but being bit in half!

Javier had done a great job stating the obvious, and then mentally slapping himself. Mutant, really? What else could it possibly be? Even with a portal to another dimension, magic was still not real. But mutants very much were. Situations like this were definitely for someone else to solve. The X-men, mostly, or maybe the MRC. Definitely not for Javier, or a random woman, super strength or not.

>>”Okay. We...just wait. The X-Men will be here soon. Meanwhile, we’ll just...manage and make sure everyone gets OUUUUUUTTTTTTT!”

And then a fox took her.

For a moment, Javier stared in horror, expecting to see Roxie bitten in half within a moment. The fox turned, and Javier was knocked off his feet by the brush of its tail as it trotted off towards the zoo. The tailor rolled back on his feet and bolted after them. She was still moving, and not bleeding a lot, so she was still alive. He could still help. He had to try. As far as he knew, he might be the only superpowered person within range to help. And he could do it. He had to do it.

Javier caught up to the fox, and took a leap. His strength kicked in stronger than he'd expected, so much so that he almost overshot the beast by a few feet; in the end, he landed very un-gracefully on the fox's back, and grabbed hold of the thick red fur.

"I'm here! Are you okay?" he yelled, trying to catch sight of the woman without falling off his surreal ride.

Though she didn’t mean to tease her new found friend about what was causing this, it came out nonetheless. He seemed like a nice guy but there was a nervousness about him that she just couldn’t identify. But whatever the cause she couldn’t devote much time to wondering about it because she was currently being made into a snack for a gigantic fox.

The beast rushed out, catching Roxie off her guard and quickly scooped her into his mouth. Feeling the teeth of the fox pinning her down, she yelled as she tried struggling against it. The problem was that now that her feet were lifted off the ground entirely, she was beginning to lose some of her already waning strength. This far into the expanse of the park and she could feel her abilities flickering on and off. And being lifted into a fox’s mouth just made it worse.

Pushing and shoving against the teeth, she growled as she tried to find some way out but the bouncing of the running fox was making that virtually impossible. Then, as she looked up, she saw something that seemed nearly impossible -- something flying through the air. Or, at least that was what it looked like to her skewed perspective. In reality this person was just falling from a very high point in the sky. Once he disappeared from view, Roxie figured she had imagined it, but a voice soon called down and she smiled in relief. It was him.

>>"I'm here! Are you okay?"

Roxie, her hands planted against the tooth of the fox, and continued to wriggle ineffectively. ”Not really!” she shouted back. ”But at least I’m not dead! I don’t know what’’s going on! It hasn’t tried to eat me!”

It was curious. If this was an attack, surely the animal would have devoured her by now. But instead of doing so, it was merely running far and fast, carrying her to another point of the park. It took a few moments but as she looked around, she noted that other massive animals were running, these ones actually carrying other people, either in hands or in the soft portion of their mouths. They weren’t being taken away to be eaten -- they were being kidnapped. But where? And why?

She shouted back up to Javier. ”Can you see anything?!”

Life-threatening surreal superhuman situation or not, Javier was still not doing well on the communication front. It was probably too much to ask to jump over a giant fox at a single leap, and also be able to talk to a woman like a normal human being. Well, at least the jump succeeded.

Roxie was still talking, and not bleeding profusely. Small miracles.

>>”Not really! But at least I’m not dead! I don’t know what’’s going on! It hasn’t tried to eat me!”

"Let's hope that lasts" Javier muttered, taking a firm hold on the fox fur. He was along for the ride now; he did not want to try and see how he'd stick a superhero landing. And he couldn't really leave Roxie alone.

>>”Can you see anything?!”

"No sign of the cavalry yet" Javier noted, looking around from his vantage point "But it looks like... um. I think we're going to the giraffe building?"

The largest building in the zoo, it seemed like the point the giant animals were converging on.

"So... how strong are you, exactly?"