Even in the darkest of nights, New York was one of the busiest cities in the world. Cars slowly rode down the busy roads, honks breaking any sort of silence that would normally be in any other city. Music blared from all corners, businesses still boomed, and the city burst with life as it always has.

However, like it often has as of late, there was an undertone of tension in the commercial district of the massive city.

Rumors often spread fast, and as those rumors spread, the more exaggerated they get. A simple squirrel eating an acorn can suddenly turn into the Monster Squirrel of Central Park should people pay enough attention to it. That's why it partially amusing that the rumor of a small, seemingly reptile creature simply stealing food at night eventually snowballed into the rumor of a massive dragon that devoured all sorts of people at it's own discretion. A terrifying beast of legend, suddenly revived in the modern age, was now on the verge of terrorizing the world as they knew it.

Hey, whatever kept him from trying to grab a quick burger from someone unsuspecting.

A man walked warily home after a long night of work. He held in his hands a large Pizza King box, courtesy of his job for working so hard. The man looked from side to side every couple of seconds, anxiety filling every part of his body. Of course he had heard the rumors over the last couple of days. Normally, one might not believe in such a fairy tale, but crazier things have happened in the world the last decade or so. Although, the man didn't really want to believe it. A creature from mythology suddenly coming to life? That was crazy! And yet...

The man stopped in his tracks as he heard a sudden sound, like a small animal running around nearby. "W-who's there???" the man stammered, looking around, his heart pounding in his chest. The running sound continued, this time to his left, causing the man to look to that side, and what he saw was probably the most horrifying thing he's ever seen. A massive shadow of a beast with 3, long horns, larger than people wings, and fangs as sharp as knives loomed over him. "D-D-D-" the man stammered, dropping the pizza box and backing up. The shadow then let out a deep roar, sending the man running away in terror. "DRAGOOOOOON!!!!!" he screamed as he fled, causing everyone else to start panicking and running, clearing the area out in a few small moments.

The source of the shadow flicked his tail from side to side, the small dragon snickering to himself as he wandered over to his prize. Ooo...a large one! Nice! This will fill Jack's belly up nicely for tonight! The dragon picked up the pizza box with mouth, trotting onwards into an alleyway, where his more recent hideaway was. He didn't mind the people's rumors too much; so long as it kept his belly full and people away, what was there to fear?

After years of working as a guidance counselor at a mutant school, Gemma had developed a keen sixth sense for teenagers eating trash pizza. It was totally a thing. If she had not been an adapted, she would have suspected it was her mutant power. Ironically. And New York, like most big cities, had no shortage of teenagers eating out of trash cans.

She was on her way back to Xavier's, walking along the edge of Central Park, when she heard the shouting. Yelling was a staple of life in New York, but one could always tell when someone was startled, rather than angry. This yell was accompanied by other sounds, of people fleeing; people had long learned to flee at the first sign of trouble in a city where anything could happen, from giant lemurs to animated Thanksgiving turkeys. Gemma herself looked around, trying to see what her safest course of action would be.

She noticed she skittering a few moments later. A small figure and a big pizza box emerged, and disappeared a second later down an alleyway. The alley was a dead end, she knew that, and the figure could have been a dog, but... it wasn't. Gemma veered off her intended course, and walked over to the corner of the alley, peering in.

"Hello?..."

At night, the color white stands out. It lets people know you’re there, let’s them know you’re patrolling. That you’re bold. That you don’t care about standing out. And that was exactly what Shin was going for. He liked standing out.

The triangular platform he rode across the city skyline was white. The suit Shard wore was white. Suit jacket and shirt? White. Shoes... white. Smile, white. Tie? ... black. But you can’t have everything.

It was a suit, mind you. Not a tuxedo. He wasn’t going for a negative Tuxedo Mask thing, or a Kaito Kid thing. It just looked smooth and professional. And for shard armor that turns aside blades and protects against bullets, professional is good.

So far, he’d stopped a professional mugger and, unknown to him, caused a convenience store robber to rethink his life choices and not pull a gun on a nice elderly cashier in a green turtleneck.

Altering his course, the Asian mutant flew low to scope out the city. He trained his ears to the alleys and byways, hoping to hear... yup. A strident scream that managed to overcome the sounds of New York and be heard. Hunching his shoulders forwards, Shin turned the triangular platform in the direction of the sound and flew.

He didn’t notice the woman entering the alley. If he had, he may have recognized her and flown the other way. It wasn’t anything personal. It was just that, the moment he was low enough in the alley to be within sight of her, it was already too late.

White is a great color for standing out at night. Unfortunately for Shin, his white shard armor didn’t stay white for very long. Nor did his shard flying platform. In fact, they didn’t stay around at all. The second Shard entered the seven foot range mutation nullifying field of Gemma Taylor, adapted guidance counselor at Xavier’s Sister school, all of his mutations promptly went away.

And Shin fell out of the sky... six feet. Not so bad. Into a pile of conveniently-placed black trash bags by a wall. Worse. He’d probably said something coarse that rhymes with spit. Cans had crashed, bags had... splashed... and a moment later, a grungy Asian in blue jeans and a black pattern t-shirt had stumbled out of a mountain of trash.

Slime slid down one long black sleeve. It matched the greenish yellow of the two big cat eyes in the center of his chest. Black dragon face on black t-shirt. The main little dragon from that movie series about training monsters stared out at the alley, almost in annoyance. It, too, was covered in slime.

”Ugh.” Shin said.

Not very eloquent, but then he WAS in an adapted field. He couldn’t think very good.

Rayne never understood why New York was always so dang busy, even at this time of night.   Then again, the morning is absolutely a nightmare. The cars, the noise, it can all be a bit much for sensitive ears.   Its why she made the shop she works at, at least her room there, soundproof as much as possibly.  Better to concentrate.  The good thing about the night though, the wait for food is not as long. 


A black cooler in her hand which has her steak and ribs inside, Rayne makes her way back home though when she hears people panicking after a roar she stops and looks towards where the sound came from.  Now to go and see what was going on or go home and relax...Her choice was taken from her when people start to run by her, saying something about a beast?  Dragon? Flying lizard?  This she has to see.


Slinging her cooler strap over her shoulder so it lies diagonal across her chest, Rayne heads in the direction that everyone was running from.   She might have changed her mind at one point but on her way she sees something white flying through the air.   She has seen this white object from afar before, but never this close and now she can see its a person.  Getting closer, Rayne spots one more person and slows down her walk to a stroll, standing at a distance from them but close enough to see that the person in white just dropped out of the sky and lost all the white armor when he got close to the girl in the mouth of the ally.  


That has to be something that blocks mutation?  Maybe nullifies it all together.  Whatever she does, Rayne stays back from this girl, not sure what her range actually is.  

Jack has jinxed it. Jack has most definitely jinxed it to the highest degree.

The small dragon trotted happily towards the edge of the alleyway, where the entrance to his latest hideaway was. He could smell the sweet, warm aroma of the pizza in the box in his mouth. Peppers, pepperoni, onions...oh heck to the yes. This was probably one of the bigger meals he had gotten in the last couple of months. Granted, it wasn't like that would fill his belly fully; this was only really enough so that Jack wouldn't starve over the next couple of weeks. Sadly, that was just the life that he had been set to live for a long while.

About halfway down, however, Jack felt a rather...strange feeling. Normally, Jack always had the sense that he could transform whenever he pleased, but now...he felt an odd sense of nothing. Like he was stuck in the current form he was in, and even his wings and legs suddenly felt a lot more...useless than they usually do. That was extremely odd. He looked around, wondering if it was just anxiety getting the better of him, before a voice called out.

Wide, sharp, purple eyes quickly stared back in the direction of where the voice came from. They practically broke through the darkness of the night, almost like they emitted their own light. They were filled with fear, the creature's small form being only barely visible in the soft light. A low growl was emitted from the small creature, though he didn't seem to be completely hostile. Whoever this person was, he just wanted to chase them off, nothing more.

Then a person literally fell from the sky, landing in a trash pile right next to him.

Jack screamed in alarm, which came out as a mix of a literal, boyish scream, and the high pitched squeak of one of those desert frogs. He dropped his prize, and tried to run out of the alleyway, but stopped as he realized the person who had originally called out to begin with. His breathing became rapid, and he looked rapidly from side to side, from person to person. He bared his glimmering, razor-sharp teeth, letting out a small, animalistic growl. Though, if that scream was anything to go by, this was most definitely a person. A kid, in fact. And a very scared one, at that.

"W-who are you people?! I-I'm sorry, just leave me alone! I-I don't want any trouble!" the small dragon exclaimed, the voice of a young child coming from it rather than a growl. He looked around for any sort of escape route, but found none. His wings were useless, and he definitely couldn't run as fast as he probably could usually. Being closer to the woman who had originally called out, he could tell that the funny feeling was coming from her. That being said, the man who fell from the sky didn't seem any more trustworthy. Man...why did things have to go from zero to one-hundred so fast?

There was a dragon with a pizza box, and then one of the X-men fell out of the sky.
It was one of those days.

As Shin fell, the dragon made a high-pitched screaming sound, and tried to scurry out of the alleyway, but stopped short of Gemma. In New York City, and in the counselor's experience, mythical creatures like this tended to be mutants... but when it didn't shift back in her aura, Gemma was becoming less sure. Were there such things as dragons, after all?... It would not have been outside the realm of possibility. Surely.

>>"W-who are you people?! I-I'm sorry, just leave me alone! I-I don't want any trouble!"

Talking dragons.

Gemma took a step back, hoping that maybe the edges of her aura would leave Shin with his abilities, and held up her hands, showing the dragon she was not going to attack.

"It's okay, you are not in trouble" she hurried to say in a calm voice "I just heard screaming and saw... saw you run in here, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay." she glanced up at Shin, taking to both him and the dragon "Sorry about the adapted field."

Purple is another color that stands out. The eyes caught his attention, first and foremost... once he was done feeling sorry for himself.

That’s another shirt ruined... and it was a cool one, too. Slime was cold. Cold was bad. Were the eyes bad? Bad eyes that wanted to hurt—?!

Nah! The little mutant thing seemed scared, more than threatening. The way he looked between him and the woman... who he knew.

Shin wanted to growl, himself. Plenty of time for that later, though. The kid seemed like they needed help. And honestly , it was a wonder he could put two and two together to make the connection that moment about the adapted he knew.

Wings... purple eyes... flying lizard, maybe? No. As Gemma edged back, her aura edged with her until it just brushed him. He took a step back, into some trash(ugh), and felt a little bit better.

There was a talking dragon. A tiny one. That was pretty cool!

Taylor spoke to the dragon, and that was good. All calm and professional-like. Like a good guidance counselor should.

>>”Sorry,” she directed her apology to him and the dragon. “About the adapted field.”

”It’s nothing,” Shin waved a dismissive hand at Taylor. It was something, actually. But they could deal with that on a whole other day.

To the dragon, he elaborated. ”Adapteds make mutations within a certain distance of them temporarily get muted or go away. For instance, I was flying before I came into the alley.” He tried to make that come off wry, rather than pointed. Really, he did.

”Guess that means you probably can’t fly all that well around her either, huh?” he said, smiling weakly. Trying to pass it off as almost funny. Rather than horrifying.

Really, If he’d been just a little bit higher or fallen a little bit differently, he’d be looking more like slime than man. Red slime. With other bits.

The guys in white who was flying is now lying in slime and everything else gross in the ally.  Ew.  Also, it seems hes no longer in white.  Interesting.  Looking between him and the other girl who has the, what she learned, is an adapted field, she guesses what the distance is for the field itself and takes a few more steps forwards to get a better look.   What she sees what she does is an actual baby dragon...one that can talk.  


Just being curious about it, Rayne doesn't actually speak, but she does watch and listen.  She didn't need to add her own input to this, the other girl had this handled it seems, plus the guy who fell from the sky, if what she has heard is correct, he's an X-Men.