So far with her limited time in New York she had discovered quite a few things that were different from the small towns she was used to. First of all, the traffic. 

"What de hell do yuh mean de Red Sox are gonna win, or what?!"

Man, traffic was a dummer. She really liked her little red junker car, but the people in this city seemed a little too happy to ram their cars into you instead of like, letting you merge. It was a little scary. 

And then there were all of the birds...

"I said what I @#$% said, are yuh deaf, or what? Red Sox are gonna trounce de yanks dis year! Okay? Trounce! Okay?!" 

Yeesh there were a lot of pigeons. Juniper was used to a few here and there, but not the hitchcock esque flocks she could run into while walking past a park bench. She almost felt sorry for the little skyrats, all having to fight over crumbs thrown by senile Abbigails on sunday afternoons. 

" I'll trounce yuh, yuh carp faced @#$%!"

Oh, and she supposed the sports was a big thing too. Apparently baseball was the top tier sport to follow, enough so that things could get very tense very quickly. Juniper used to barstool throw downs in honky tonk bars... she was not used to whatever Lord of the Rings dwarf battle was about to throw down here. New York was blessed with a lot of good looking people with a few gods in the flesh peppered in to keep things spicy. She appreciate that side.

There were also a lot of short and hairy, violent sports fans. She was currently sitting on the outskirts of the scuffle, watching as the funniest fistfight she had ever seen went down. There was hair pulling, spittle, curses she couldn't understand most of because of heavy accents, and sports memorabilia flying everywhere. 

A foam finger landed with a slight plop at her feet. She just kinda toed it a little, un-convinced it would be worth picking up if someone elses sweaty hand had been in it. 

Her frap cup crackle at her as she wiggled her straw about to try and get more whipped cream. Someone sent a shoe flying overhead and bored, half lidded eye followed it's trajectory. She pointed her new foam hand at it and closed an eye. 

Wait, when had she picked it up? Meh. Didn't matter. Red Sox #1 fan she now was. 

Ujala was late. Ujala was always late, but this time she was really, really late. They’d already had an inning or two… or four. God it felt like years.

“You keep looking at your phone.” Amber was 5, not stupid. “Mom ditched us again, didn’t she?” She wasn’t exactly here for the baseball, unlike the guys who were getting rowdy in the seats nearby. AJ, being the cool uncle, got to say things that mothers and fathers really could not, but he kind of regretted talking smack about his sister to her one and only daughter.

”It might be better if she did.” Something happened on the field that made him wonder if they should be paying attention. Before he’d actually figured out what happened, it was over. ”Besides, I’m here for you, so— I dunno. Maybe we ditch too?”

Amber grabbed AJ’s phone out of his hands. “No.”

”C’mon. Nobody cares about baseball.” The fighting was getting louder. He glanced back, and the fight had multiplied more than he’d realized. From a single scuffle toward a whole kerfuffle.

“No, let’s take a picture and send it to mom. She should see what a good time we are having. Smiii~iiiile.” Amber leaned in so they could snap a pic. In selfie-mode, AJ saw the man falling backwards over the row of seats behind them, straight on a collision course.

He grabbed Amber without regard to how their photo might turn out and grunted when the falling moron connected with his shoulder. His phone, knocked free of Amber’s hand went flying into the scrum of fighting morons.

He shoved off the stranger and checked on his niece first, then went full EMT mode.

Someone tripped backwards and rolled over and through her. She hadn't bothered to budge as the fight got a little more rowdy and grew closer. Also, she now owned a catchers mitt that someone had dropped, so... that was a thing.

She watched as a small bag of popcorn went arching overhead, raining kernels down on everyone below.

Something else came sailing through the air a second later and entirely due to luck landed snugly in the open mitt she had on her hand.

... A phone? That was new.

"Ya dirty sock lover!" A stout woman rounded on her, spotting the #1 glove for her rival team and went on the offensive. Juniper just blinked at her as a short and hilarious battle to snatch her glove away broke out, while JUniper phased it every time the lady reached for it. She hadn't known a face could get that red before. Neat!

Abandoning the glove to her victorious assainent, she turned her attention instead to the phone that had appeared from nowhere. A nice person would try to find it's owner. Yes.

Was she a nice person today?

Meh, might as well try.

Hobbling up a tab bit unsteadily onto her seat, she lifted the phone in the air and shouted over the loud tussling.

"Hey! Anyone lose their phone??"

She searched around with her eyes trying to spot any hopeful faces.

AJ turned his attention completely to the guy who took a tumble. The man looked a bit banged up, but it was mostly his pride that seemed hurt. And his team honor or some other such nonsense. He was speaking very loudly about it, but AJ was too used to ignoring angry people who needed help. Amber freaked. Not because she was hurt, AJ had ascertained that she was not, but because of the phone that had gone missing from her hand.

“Oh. Oh nodon’tbemad!” The 5 year old launched herself over the back of the seats and over AJ and his guerrelous new friend.

”Amber! Wait!” AJ made a grab for her, but missed. His friend grabbed his arm to argue more, but AJ shrugged him off with a ”I don’t even like baseball!” He tried to go after her, but short as he may be, he was no match for a skinny little runt of a kindergartener.

Amber heard the call. A young woman had the phone and it wasn’t even broken! She dashed forward between two adults on collision course and made a grab for the glove with the stolen phone.

“Hey that’s my uncle’s!”

Someone called out above the noise and caught her attention. Some kid heading her way. She briefly considered tossing it to her, before remembering it was a phone and not a baseball, and most people didn't enjoy scrambling to catch their expensive electronics. Boring, but whatever. Not many people had as disposable of an income as her, either.

She was about to shout back for the kid to calm the heck down, when she noticed the runt about to get flattened by two people much larger than her. Without really thinking, she launched into some semblance of action. A less then elegant leap from her seat, mostly phased in order to just cut right through smashing bodies. Juniper landed roughly on unstable feet, but was able to reach out and grab for one of the girl's shoulders, adding her to the pile of things she had already turned intangible. The two adults who had been careening toward them crashed into each other in a flail of limbs, suddenly realized they were effectively standing inside a small child and a woman, and bounced the heck out of there relatively quickly.

"You okay, kid?" As soon as the coast was clear Juniper dropped her hand from the girls shoulder, and held out the phone for her to take, still in her yoinked mitt.

It was much harder trying to keep her attention both on protecting herself, as well as potentially having to protect the kid. It her eyes didn't deceive her though it looked like an adult was scrambling to catch up to the little scamp. Presumably the uncle?

"You should be more careful around fights like this," She started, eyes drifting off the side as a brawling woman unknowingly edged a bit closer while in a slap heavy fight with another woman. "You gotta know right where to aim to knock an adult off their feet when they're running at you like that." She winked, phasing herself from her shoulder up as the slappy woman drew near.

Or she tired, at least.

In the middle of winking an elbow smacked solidly into her cheek and eyeball with enough force that it comically rocked her head back. She saw stars and stripes for a moment. It was very fitting for a baseball game.

"WHATTHEF--" No swearing in front of kids, Juniper. "--...Fragglerock."

Why!? Why was there pain? Why was her eye watering? She still had an eyeball, right?!?! Why hadn't her power worked?? She reached out to grab a nearby armrest so she wouldn't just fall straight over from the very unexpected contact made with a little New York love to her face.

AJ saw Amber on a collision course and it was slow mo horror time. He couldn't get there. He couldn't reach or stretch or do anything superhuman to fix the problem. He was going to watch his little niece get turned into a pancake.

Except she didn't.

He grunted as someone caught him in the gut, but ultimately clawed, twisted, and squeezed his way through the crowd. He was only just barely close enough to hear Amber ask if she'd been turned into a ghost.

It was mutant f***ery to be sure. They didn't have to untangle themselves from the pile of people they just… walked out. It's not that he wasn't grateful… but until AJ had his hands on his niece's shoulders he wasn't going to trust that she was safe.

"Your phone!" She offered it to AJ as soon as she saw him. He instead scooped up the girl.

"You wonderful, horrible child. I like you way more than my phone so please don't go running after useless things when people be crazy." Amber's savior was in the middle of giving her own advice when she got elbowed in the eye and that somewhat dampened the heartfelt moment.

> "WHATTHEF—...Fragglerock."

"Are you—?" That was a stupid question. Obviously she was hurt, but considering he was backing out of the way of someone who was making a grab for the glory of his beard, he couldn't do much first aid in the right here and right now.

He wasn't a fighter. But he was used to being listened to. He had a voice he reserved for moment of authority that brooked no argument and he wasn't afraid to use it.

"Back off." He stiff armed the Karen and set Amber back on her feet, motioning with his head for her to grab hold of her hero and tug her along. He was going to get them to a wall if possible. They had to get out of the melee somehow.

Don'tsweardon'tsweardon'tsweardon'tswear

Pressing the opposite hand to her eye, she was thoroughly focused on not uttering every single curse word she knew at the top of her lungs, and didn't notice the semi question or do-not-test-me voice being used by the presumed uncle.

How quickly did eye injuries swell? Was she going to have a black eye, or was it gonna get all swollen and she'd look like Quasimodo for a few days? Were there even any bell towers in New York?

Her eye was watering pretty back so she kept it squished shut in what she was sure was a very attractive, and around that time the little girl latched onto the hand supporting her and started dragging her along. Juniper offered zero resistance, since she didn't want to get owned again by anyone else in Yankees gear, as the small child led them away from the scuffle.

Squinting through her good eye, she tried to make sure she didn't trip or cause any more harm to herself along the way. Once they were safe, she went back to covering her eye with her hand and offered a wobbly smile to the girl.

This was awkward. She'd kinda figured she'd save the day a little and then be off on her merry way. She wasn't the type to stick around for praise or anything. The green eyed girl had put her in a bit of a spot.

"Thanks. Um... I, er... like your hair?" Shit, how did small talk go again? The kid was safe now, right? She could hobble off with her tail between her legs now, right?

Crap, she probably had to wait for the guy to come collect the kid again.

"And no, I didn't turn you into a ghost. It's kinda like 'The Blur', when he goes super fast and becomes intangible? Like that." She knew the kid couldn't have been whoever had interrupted her power, or... turned it off, so she knew she could use it again right that moment. It had probably been someone in the mob, or... maybe elbow woman herself. She had been the closest.

He couldn't help but grab the wounded and trampled people as he went. By the time they made it to a wall he'd hefted a bruised and thankful woman to her feet, helped guide a head injury along with them, and started to organize bystanders into a roughshod triage. Thankfully, most people when singled out and guilted, would actually obey orders.

He probably should have gone to their personal hero woman first, but the man with the head injury just kept bleeding. AJ ended up stripping the guy's own shirt and using it to apply pressure.

Amber held onto the woman's hand, wide-eyed as she realized the adults had all gone mad.

> "It's kinda like 'The Blur', when he goes super fast and becomes intangible? Like that."

"So you're a superhero?"

AJ was finally making it back around.

"Most people are something in between, dude."

He had hand sanitizer, but regretted not carrying gloves. Who knew he'd end up splattered with blood today? He'd done his best to wipe his hands clean, but there was only so much he could do.

"I'm so sorry. My name is AJ and this is Amber. May I?" It was only polite to ask before touching someone else's face. His fingers were strong and callused as he probed around the eye, quietly asking for the hero to indicate when it hurt for him to touch.

"This needs ice. Can you see out of the hurt eye?"

Sirens sounded and the seemingly endless brawl lost a bit of its steam. About time.

Juniper chuckled awkwardly, unsure of what to say exactly. She didn't like arguing with kids. "Well, not exactly. I'm just a normal girl who doesn't like seeing little girls get squished." The girl was still holding her hand. Well wasn't that just precious! She was trapped now, wasn't she?

The man came back and she didn't fail to notice that he had seemingly saved a few other people from the fight. That was good. Was that blood? Man, baseball was starting to look worse than hockey if first impressions were anything to go by. She blinked at him, and then at newly named Amber. "Don't worry about it, I'm fine. I'm Juniper."

She was wary of him touching her. Yeah, he seemed to have the best intentions, but she didn't usually make a habit of letting stranger poke at new injuries. Amber was staring a hole in the side of her head though, so she relented with a stiff nod. "Sure, knock yourself out."

She hissed and muttered as indicators of where it hurt, still wondering if her eye was going to swell shut or something equally as horrifying. Hearing that it would need ice was okay, though she would need to pick some up since she was too lazy to bother with ice at home. "It's a little blurry and hard to open, but I can see. Am I likely to turn into Quasimodo any time soon? I need to know if I'm swinging from the roof tops on the way home, or Subway safe."

She tried to grin at Amber a little, hoping her joke passes the kid test.

It was nice to see the festivities dying down a little. Security had jumped in to pull the aggrivators out, and everyone else just wanted to get back to the game.

"Are baseball games usually this... Volatile? I'm new to the sport."

He had a really great beard.

Don’t worry about it and I’m fine were the hallmarks of a superhero. Superheroine? AJ hadn’t really kept up on what the preferred terminology was. Sometimes, like calling a girl comic a comedienne, gendering words just made people more upset for some reason.

"They got you on the frontal zygomatic bone." He sucked in through his teeth as he probed, but did his actual best not to hurt her. He wasn’t overly fond of hurting people in general. It was good that she was talking and he leaned back at the end, capturing her chin in his hand so that he could compare pupils… probably just a gnarly bruise. No cuts.

"Your eye’s gonna swell shut tonight unless you take NSAIDs, like Ibuprofen? You need an eye patch and ice. No more than ten minutes at a time and don’t apply any pressure. You’ll go full Quasimodo in 2, maybe 3 minutes.”

“The f--- is a quasi moto?” She asked without pretense, as if she had no idea what she’d just said was in poor taste. AJ dropped his hands from Juniper’s face and turned to his niece.

"Amber! I might be the cool uncle, but I am not that cool. Where’d you hear that?”

Amber stepped behind the Juniper.

> "Are baseball games usually this... Volatile? I'm new to the sport."

"I wouldn’t know, but… there’s a sudden influx of people who got younger, temporarily. Maybe it’s hormones. Or in the water..."

Amber stuck her tongue out from her place of safety behind Juniper.

Yup. Full-quasi it was. "Right. Pain killers and a bath and a bottle of wine. Gotcha doc." She help up her hands to show she was joking, just in case she offended him.

Juniper tried to look as innocent as someone with a rapidly swelling eyeball could as Amber dropped the Fbomb and promptly hid behind her. She'd totally censored herself so at the very least she was only taking half the blame! "Kids, these days, amiright?" She laughed. It sounded a tad nervous.

He brought up hormones and all the younger-older people running around and, well, yeah. Maybe that was why? Sure. Sounded good enough for her. "At least when you go to a hockey game you go expecting this kinda fighting." She wasn't sure if she should try to stand up, or continue being a human shield for a very amusing child from her Uncle. She tried to turned to peek at the girl and winced when stretching her neck pull at very sore muscles in her face.

"Don't you know Quasimodo? Dude stuck in the bell tower by Frollo the dudebro, who had a crush on Esmerelda the beautiful dancer?" She blinked, trying to remember the rest of the plot. Hadn't there been some blonde dude? "That was totally a big thing when I was a kid. Are are kids these days watching?"

She turned back to the uncle, "Okay so... i'm not concussed. So I should be fine walking around right?" Maybe if she just phased a little of her weight she could breeze on home faster and not look like a leper who had just escaped a hospital. With that in mind she threw and arm back to plant her hand on the ground for stabilization, fully intending on being lazy and just phasing right through a metal rail off to the side of her.

Her funny bone took the hit and horrible weird wiggly pain shot down her arm, and she immediately wanted to die. She couldn't curse, though, because the next one could totally be blamed fully on her, so instead she just made a weird squeaking sound and her non-swelling eye twitched.

She also realized a very important thing.

It was @#$%ing HIM. He was the one doing weird things to her power! Cripes, she needed to get awaaaaay.

"Heh, whoops. Meant to do that." Play it cool, Juniper.

He opened his mouth to protest, totally caught off guard by her gesture. He was totally ready to lecture.

"You wouldn't believe how many people aren't kidding when they say that stuff." He complained. Or maybe she would believe it... Her hockey point was fairly made. "People be crazy." He eyed a man who was already cuffed, but still had "the crazy" in his eyes. Seriously. Sometimes it felt like New York went in phases of madness. Most EMTs would swear it was a lunar cycle thing.

> "That was totally a big thing when I was a kid. What are kids these days watching?"

"Chilly 2." Amber supplied from wherever she could best be eclipsed by Juniper. She was carefully staying out of reach of her surly uncle. "All the girls want ice powers. Or powers at all. Like yours, right? You do the-" She tried and failed to come up for a way to describe it. "You do the thing. And that's cooler than ice, anyway."

"You are cleared for take off." He gave her a mock salute, ready to send Ms. Juniper on her way. Only, Juniper whacked herself a good one on the metallic railing nearby. The rail sounded like a big gong and made Amber jump.

AJ offered Juniper a hand up. Noticing that things were so much clamer with just a few human elements removed. "Are you sure you can make it?"

Ha! She'd gotten him! That made all the pain and suffering slightly worth it. Just a bit. Her eyes trailed back to the wound down fight as well. "Absolutely cray-cray." She nodded. The action hurt. She regretted it instantly.

Her attention turned back to Amber and she tried to twist her spine in a way it didn't wanna just so she could actually see the girl who was still hunkered down behind her. "Is that the one with the 'Let it Snow' song?" She hummed slightly, rubbing away the weird feeling in her elbow as she thought about it. "Well thank you, though I don't know if i'd say better. My power is... eh... easier to apply to real life scenarios." She nodded. Sure, that sounded smart. Maybe.

Better than talking snowmen and catchy songs, at least.

AJ had given her the all clear and she'd honestly wanted to bolt for it right then and there, before she'd made herself look like more of an idiot than getting elbowed by a sports Karen had started her off as. She blinked her one working eye at the offered hand, face escalating in color a few shades. Maybe she was feeling a little defensive about herself all of the sudden.

... At least he seemed to be a nice demon spawn, instead of the alternative. That made things better, right?

Not even slightly. She looked like half a toad because of him, even if it was inadvertent.

Yeah, the defensive was kicking in.

She accepted the hand up a little reluctantly, and reached out to steady herself on the closest rail. Only having one eyeball at the moment was definitely going to make things harder. "I'm not a huge klutz, really! Like, I don't normally have this problem." She gestured to her injury wordlessly. "I'm, uh... not used to having my power turned off all the time, like it is with you here."

She paused, "At least i'm assuming it's you, unless there is a really small person hovering around me who is not Amber, that I haven't spotted yet."

She flustered a bit more. Where was she going with this?! "I think i'll be fine? I've never stumbled around like a cyclops before though, so it'll be a learning opportunity I suppose." She lifted an arm and peeked to see if Amber was still behind her.

"No!" Amber laughed like she got the joke. "Let it Snow is in Chilly 1. Chilly 2 has the wind and the fire gecko. You know. Ahhhh~aaaaaah." When Amber sang it was a couple notes high, but it was recognizable at least. AJ shook his head at the both of them. Juniper was decrying her current klutiness with hand waves and an eyebrow raising lack of articulation. She wasn't concussed, just... her power was turned off.

"Oh. OH!" He still wasn't used to his "abilities" or whatever. AJ took a large step backwards with his hands up between the two of them.

"I swear I'm not doing anything on purpose... or... anything at all. I thought I was just lucky, but as it turns out, this... this whatever. It's a major inconvenience for some people." Like life threateningly so. AJ still felt bad about the zombie guy who died every time he'd tried to move close and revive him. That had taken an embarrassingly long time to sort out in the back of an ambulance.

And speaking of things that took too long to notice... where was Amber?

AJ spun a quick circle looking for the slender 5 year old who still had his phone in hand. She was halfway down the staircase behind them.

"Yeah, mom, it was awesome. We got into a fight!"

Face, meet palm. "I have to-" he pointed, but she likely already knew. "It was nice meeting you, Juniper."

"Ooooh. Yeah, my mistake." She laughed at the singing kid. She was @#$%ing adorable. "I'll have to watch the movie again and make sure I have my fact correct next time." She'd never seen the movie. She wasn't planning on seeing the movie, but the kid didn't need to know that.

She blinked at AJ. Oh... was he not able to turn it off? She had kinda figured after running into the last person with an ability like his that they just did it to be D*cks all the time.

Her own hands hopped into the air to counter his. "Nah, really it's fine. I'm just used to walking through pretty much everything like a lazy a-" She caught herself, "-butt." God, she wasn't very good at censoring herself. "I'm actually kinda happy to hear that it's not intentional though. The last chick I ran into with a power similar to this disliked me, i'm pretty sure, so there's no telling with that one."

Amber had already started to wander off, apparently. She smiled knowingly, even though it hurt a bit to do so, and shot two thumbs up at him. "Gotcha. Thanks for the advice, doc! It was nice meeting you too!"

She waited for them to wander off a bit before reaching out and passing an intangible arm through that same railing, just to check.

Once she confirmed that she was all clear, she hefted herself back to her feet and headed out of the stadium. It was going to be a long walk home, probably with lots of gawking strangers... and she'd have to avoid Xavier. He seemed the type to try and drag her to a hospital.

There was a bottle of tequila and a bath calling her name already.