The violin crooned, within the room. The violence crooned, without.

It was a nice room. Cream-colored walls. Comfortable red curtains. A cushioned seat, in a wooden chair, within easy view of the window to the outside world. In one corner of the room, there was a piano. Against the walls, books in beautiful wooden shelves. He was not alone. There was another. He was teaching them to play. A side gig. Sometimes you take them. When your life’s work is a musician for the New York orchestra, people pay you to teach their children your trade.

The kid was good. 8 or 9, dark hair. Glasses. A boy. His parents had pressured him in to picking up an instrument, but he had chosen the violin, and he had pointed August out to his parents during a concert. August had been told this fact. The boy’s parents were wealthy, and had connections. They arranged this.

He had been teaching the boy how to play weekly, for a few months now. This was, after all, August 28th, 2024. On a Wednesday, in the middle of the week. Today had been a little awkward, because the streets had been unusually busy. He had taken the subway or a bus or something, then walked. Things had not started yet then, but after arriving, the noises outside had steadily grew more chaotic.

The boy was doing his best to focus on the music, and to ignore the noise without. To focus on the noise within. But damn, if it wasn’t fucking noisy out there!!

What was the kid’s name again? Li, or was it Lee? Surname was either Tarin or Tran… Tran, he thought. It reminded him of the bus service operated by Lee county, out in Florida… which he had used some times. Because his family liked to vacation there, and he would rather use the city transit system than die in a car with them for another minute. So he remembered things. And he remembered it was Tran on the check.

Nice parents. Maybe Vietnamese or Chinese family? Possibly both. None of his business, but Tran definitely seemed more Vietnamese in his mind than it did as a Chinese Surname. The kid had a big family, too. A sister, older. Probably high school age. She did piano, which was totally fine. And a little brother who sometimes sat and listened, when he wasn’t sniffling or blowing his nose. Cute kid. He got really excited when his brother played Ode to Joy, or canon in d, or the game of thrones theme. Insert appropriate MrO-ism here.

A car alarm went off outside. August looked at the boy. “I think our time is up.” He said.

The boy nodded, then bent to begin packing up his Violin. “Same time next week?”

“Gee, I hope so. Stay inside today. That stuff outside sounds bad.” August replied

Another nod. Good kid. He said her was gonna play checkers with his little brother and keep them thinking about other stuff. Maybe listen to some Bach, really loud. August thought that was a great idea.

He left the house, and heard a lock click behind him. Cool cool. Smart. He took a step off the stoop, and walked into a war zone. Well, the New York equivalent. He almost turned around to see if He could go play checkers, too.

People were running around, shouting. A car alarm was wailing. On account of the guy jimmying. Above, some flying folks were bickering. Slugging it out. One used their laser eyes. Yeah. He was not getting involved with that. The car, though. August sighed, and went over to use some hand signs and magical suggestions to suggest the persongo home and eat a big meal because they were hungry. That was reasonable, right?

The person left. August started down the street, using magic and avoiding folks and just really telling people to leave, or go home. To calm down. Stop fighting. Flee. He used hand gestures, taking into account ambient magical energy, and using some of his own. He had spell focus stuff, but it was not dire enough for business cards. Those cost money, you know?

He began making his way down town, like that one song. Telling folks to relax. Don’t do it. Et cetera. He just wanted to get home.

He was not feeling the noize, time to quiet a riot.

The news was on and they weren’t doing a very good job with their coverage, Kealey Shinbo couldn’t help but think as she stood in her apartment high above the streets and watched the “eyewitness accounts” from social media that the news seemed to find sufficient. They definitely weren’t out with helicopters or news vans, having learned from previous chaos that all that did was put their reporters in danger.

Checking her phone again and seeing that there were no messages from her husband, Kealey turned to her sister-in-law and shook her head. Sasami had really chosen an excellent time to visit. Kealey could feel the tension in the other woman along with the worry and the general discomfort that came with situations like this.

”I don’t know why he hasn’t texted.” Kealey said, arms crossed as she watched yet another social media video moving across the news stream. “I’m certain that they called in the X-Men though and there’s definitely enough going on that Shin probably just doesn’t have time to be on his phone.”

Somewhere in the back of her head, Kealey could feel Michael, content and sleeping in his room in the back of the apartment. Usually naps were a time for Kealey to regain her equilibrium and remember what it was like to feel like an adult instead of an infant. Kealey loved nap time almost as much as she loved her son.

This visit had been planned almost from the moment that Michael had been born, with Shin’s family still mostly in Japan, they’d been trickling in to meet their new little relative. Sasami had only arrived two days prior and the visit had been good. Until today.

With their apartment as high up as it was, Kealey didn’t usually feel anything from outside, but suddenly she could feel anger, fear, animosity, belligerence, pretty much all of the things that you feel when you’re in a fight.

Moving quickly to the window, the blonde looked outside to see two people flying and fighting in the vicinity of her apartment.

Absolutely not.

Blue eyes narrowed and Kealey concentrated on all of those aggressive feelings and pushed them down.

The two flying figures slowed in the air, and then came to a stop, staring at each other across a short distance as calm seeped into both of them. Grabbing that calm, Kealey pushed it up until they both looked almost languid hanging there in the air. They turned then and went their separate ways.

Much better.

Turning to Sasami, Kealey shook her head. ”Can you watch Michael when he gets up?” she said with an exasperated little sigh. “I’m going to go downstairs and make sure that everything is safe around the building”

He’d made it from the nice neighborhood where the Tran family lived, into the bigger part of the city, with taller apartment buildings rather than McMansions and houses. Who would have thought a handful of blocks could be so harrowing?

He had seen no less than five interesting things. Any more than that, He could not really share in detail. It would be overwhelming. And also, the majority of things were stuff like daylight burglary, car crashes and break-ins, improper parking when thieves realized traffic was making theft impossible. Car wrecks, jaywalking. The list of boring things went on. But here was the first interesting thing on the list… As he had walked and avoided, He had noticed, the majority of dumb crimes were being committed by one person. In duplicate.

The man wore hats of various appearances, size, sometimes wore facial hair to appear unique, but the faces were all the same sane. Heights, same. Clothes, other than hats…. Same. Eventually, He found who He thought was the ring leader. The king clone. The one doing nothing but give orders and laugh. He approached him, pulling out a deck of playing cards from a pocket. He pulled one from the deck, then pocketed the deck. August held one up in front of him, and focused his gaze on the man.

The man noticed him, manic look on his face. He said “a h h h, yes. Y o u. Here to stop me, yes? She is ipaying us a lot for this. Me? Remove him.”

A clone came towards him, from where it was busy spray painting someone’s building. The graffiti said eye heart “me.” The body parts were pictures, the word was a word. The clone held the paint can menacingly. August ignored him, and cast the suggestion spell on the king.

“She told me you’re doing great.” He improvised. Hoping this would work. Who was she? “She suggested you all go home now, and wait for a bonus to come in your account.” That was the suggestion. He added “Wait for further orders.” For clarification. Non magical.

The business card He held had gold writing, and runes. Hand-painted, on top of a regular business card. It burned away, as if by magic. Into ash.

Kings eyes went steely for a moment, then He nodded and slowly said yes. The clones suddenly streaked towards him, from wherever they were. A Bounding blur. The can clattered to the concrete. Elsewhere. Numerous situations ceased. He snapped upright and clasped his hands together. Then bowed! Then bolted. August blinked.

That had been the first interesting thing. As for the rest, let’s be a lot briefer. Four more things, in a flash!

2)He saw a man burping slugs. Weird.

3)He saw a mystic casting spells that did stuff like make men burp slugs. He told him something good would happen if he threw his spell focus, a magic geode, against the brick wall. It did. It shattered and the spells on all the people who had been hexed were broken. That was good. He was disappointed but you can’t win every time.

4) it was a scene from a Hitchcock film, the birds. Pigeons, swiping. Swooping. A man was laughing, companions commanded.

“Stop.” A stranger said. It was August.

The man was not sure why he stopped. The birds landed on his arms. Cooed.

And finally,

5)The guy he had met once before, the one who had beat him up, then turned into a chicken when rex appeared… he showed up. August got his spell off first, and it shockingly worked.

He was standing in front of a tall apartment building.

“Hey man, long time no see.” August passed his hands in front of him in casting motions. “You’re in danger. It isn’t safe here. You should exit like you did last time.”

The man, who August called will power, due to his will power… said “Great fucking idea.”

He snapped an onyx tablet, and turned into a chicken. Flapped away.

All things considered, Kealey thought that Shin’s sister would have made a pretty good X-Man. Uncowed by the prospect of taking care of an infant she’d only known for a couple of days Sasami agreed and Kealey made her way to the Master bedroom to throw on clothes and shoes more appropriate than leggings and a t-shirt to go out on the town and potentially curb chaos.

A few moments later, the blond was back in jeans, trainers, and a different t-shirt that she could move in. None of them were originals and she definitely hadn’t broken out her uniform. Kealey was retired from official X-Men duties and didn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.

Still, Sasami was feeling confident in her work, if still a bit worried for her brother and Kealey did her best to push those emotions to the back of her mind in favor of things that were more productive at the moment.

Out the door and to the elevator Kealey went, patiently waiting as she gauged the general feelings of the people in the building. The elevator arrived and Kealey found herself tapping her foot at about the same time she noticed that a person or several people were feeling rather restless and impatient a couple of floors down. Did they want to leave and were stuck? She wondered as the doors opened and Kealey went inside. Kealey pushed the button for the lobby and the elevator began to descend. As it did so Kealey ticked off the floors, not by watching the windows above the door light up, but by the familiar emotions of the people at certain “landmarks” as she passed.

“Grumpy person” on the 22nd floor was there and grumpy, maybe they needed to get out a bit more? Today though, there was more than enough reason to be grumpy.

“Silly kiddo” wasn’t on the 18th floor and Kealey frowned a bit at the absence of the juvenile glee that tended to wash away the grump from the 22nd floor. Hopefully they and their parents weren’t out in all of this junk.

The 14th floor and “placid contentment” were there, doing their placid and content thing and Kealey sighed a bit as the grump from above dissipated.

From there Kealey felt myriad and varied feelings as the elevator continued on its path and eventually deposited her in the lobby. Towards the doors she went, but was surprised when the doorman stepped up to her, “Mrs Shinbo it’s awful chaotic out there…” he said, concern evident in his voice and more than a little fear present in his emotions.

”It’s alright Tyler, I’m just going to go check things out. You don’t need to worry about me.” It probably sounded a bit funny coming from a woman who barely came to the middle of his chest, but Tyler stepped aside and let Kealey pass. He knew who lived in the upper floors of the building and probably at least a little of what they could do.

Outside Kealey stepped in time to see several things happening at once.

First. Unlawfullness of many kinds was occurring all around. People were breaking into cars, graffiti was being sprayed on buildings, people were running down the street with armloads of things they most certainly hadn’t purchased lawfully….and everyone was just in a frenzy. It made her hands twitch a bit and made her want to find some wild to do herself…she didn’t though…this was not Kealey Shinbo’s first rodeo.

Things were as she’d thought, and that just wouldn’t do. Reaching out with her powers, Kealey looked for anyone with a scrap of calm or logic remaining in their heads and started to focus on amping those feelings up while pushing down the other, more frenzied emotions that didn’t precisely have names. After a few moments, things were much more calm and Kealey started to walk down the street.

It didn’t take long before she came upon two men standing face to face, one of them was making interesting motions with his hands and the other was standing and seemingly watching. The man making the motions didn’t seem to feeling any intense feelings of animosity and after a few moments the other man turned into a chicken and filed away.

“Are you helping or hindering?” Kealey demanded as she marched up to the remaining man, her accent had softened a bit over the years, but the man would absolutely recognize her as Irish and not to be messed with.

When he’d seen the man, he’d been tired, wary, annoyed, just done with the day. Done enough to cast and get past a hard guard. Some mystics like combat, like a challenge. He didn’t. He was geared towards avoidance and deescalation. Words, illusions. And He wanted to get movement bashed in somewhere. Those were his music goals add far as rounding out his spell book was concerned. But He was still pretty new to magic. Unrefined.

He was relieved when will became a chicken, and even more relieved when an angry-sounding Irish woman approached and took an interest in him. Finally, someone who might help. Unless

The relief was shorte-lived, followed by a bout of concerned wariness. Was the Irish woman there to help? Helping who? Hindering who? It could easily go both ways. Did she work for Her? The mystery woman mentioned by a goon. Goons had been hired to cause trouble, he surmised, and one hired for such would have problems with their efforts being hindered.

He came off cagey. “It really depends what side you are on. I am hindering the troublemakers. Don’t know what this is about, but it sounds like they were hired and— I don’t work for whoever She is. My name is August. Hope you’re on my side…”

He really did not want this to be the end of August. He was so tired of all this nonsense.

The street here was on was a lot less busy than it had been, and he hoped the evidence would speak for itself. Be a whole lot more violent if he had encouraged it. But he had hindered, so-

——
Out of sight, around a corner and on another street.
The chicken landed on the pigeon man’s shoulder. He had been told to leave, but another influence was overriding the one August had left. Pigeon Man had been told stop, but He had. He could continue now. He felt pretty coo’.

Relief, wariness, confusion, weariness. So many different feelings. The wariness from the stranger made Kealey wary and for a moment she considered just fiddling with the man’s emotions enough to make him not dangerous and moving on her way.

The man spoke though, explaining that he was hindering…the troublemakers. Kealey narrowed blue eyes at him, as he gave his name. August. Nothing jumped out at Kealey as indicating that August was lying and there was still a lot of chaos in the street

”Together then.” Kealey said with a short nod. “Did you turn that man into a chicken or was that something of his own doing? “ she asked, glancing around to focus on someone about 20 feet away who was stabbing holes in the tires of a car with a knife. Something about the action was incredibly satisfying to the man with the knife, so Kealey took that satisfaction away despite kind of wanting to feel it again as the man moved towards the back tire of the car. As the satisfaction waned, irritation spiked and Kealey pushed that down too, her own annoyance at the situation rising. Too bad that after all these years she’d never managed to figure out how to manipulate her own emotions.

The miscreant who had been damaging the car had moved on now, muttering to himself and Kealey watched him go for a moment. There was probably more she should have done, but all she wanted right now was her general area to be safe so that she could go back upstairs and resume worrying about her husband.

Turning back to August, Kealey sighed, ”Help me clear this block?”

Okay.

She was on his side.

Okay.

And suddenly they were doing this together, like some kind of crazy team up. He had kind of hoped, when he saw them, they might be some kind of X and he could go on his merry way… which he probably would not have done. Since he was trying to be better than how he had once been, back in the day. But the feeling had still been there. Because he just wanted to get home.

Work with her? He supposed he wasn’t free to go home just yet. The busses were probably all down, anyways. Who could drive in this mess? If it were this bad in all parts of the city… not that he knew for sure. But when it rains, it pours. So August nodded back at her “together then” comment, and resolved himself to it.

He still felt tired, mentally drained, and physically… he had been tapping into his on-hand resources and ambient magic a little, so as to stretch his magical resource cards. Now he could really lean on them. Maybe in the future, he would opt for the opposite way. Magic was still kind of new, even after all this time.

He was glad for the help, even if part of him was mildly annoyed he still felt the need to help. But— the thankful feelings outweighed the selfish ones.

She asked if he could turn people into chickens.

He wanted to laugh, but he stuffed that down. Just, the suddenness of it all.

“No.” August said, with a slight head shake. “No, I don’t know what that was about. He used a focus or an item to cast that spell. Might not even be something he can do innately. Both times I have seen it,” August quit being a nerd… “He used the item. My magic is—“

August was entirely unaware of the entire universe inside the head of the blonde woman, the emotions warring and resolving.

>>> ”Help me clear this block?” The woman said.

He finished his thought out loud. “My magic is more verbal. I suggest things that sound reasonable, or give single-word commands that don’t cause harm… and they may do what I want. So mostly I’ve been suggesting that this is all really stupid, and what they really want is to go home and have a nice, long, nap. Yeah. I can help you settle these things down a bit. What sorts of stuff do you do?”

There wasn’t a whole lot of time to chit chat, and Kealey was restless and irritable owing to the emotions of the troublemakers in the area. The blond didn’t want to take it out on a complete stranger, so she tried to push those emotions to the back of her mind in a clustered and frustrated little jumble so she could focus on the man, August, instead.

August was…relieved? Kealey could understand that, it would be a relief to find someone else in this sort of scenario if he’d been trying to deal with all of those miscreants on his own. August was also…something Kealey tended to associate with done it was really a jumble of multiple things…but stress, anxiety, malaise, and a number of other things were twining together in the man’s head. Grateful was there too…plenty to work with if the need arose, but also enough that Kealey wasn’t too terribly worried.

August could apparently not turn people into chickens, but there was magic at play here. Real life magic. Shin had filled her in on Mystics and the Welldrinkers and all of the absolute chaos that went with them up to and including the destruction of a fair part of the Mansion. The idea of magic still made Kealey uncomfortable down to the tips of her toes…but judge not lest thou be judged.

The magic that her new ally possessed was suggestive in nature and Kealey nodded her understanding. ”You’ve done well.” she said, then frowned a bit thoughtfully as the man asked what she could do.

”Empath.” she said simply. It would take hours to explain everything about her powers and even then most people wouldn’t understand what she was saying.

“I think I can make people more amenable to your commands. So far I’ve just been doing my best to make them want to stop doing what they’re doing…but I can only work with what’s there…” Unless she could get close enough to touch…but she didn’t share that. Not yet.

Ego, surprisingly, was not a large part of him that moment. Maybe He might have pride about performances, or something clever he’s may have done, but this situation? Here? Now? He was just getting by. ‘Done Well?’ No. Passable. He had gotten lucky that he had not met anyone with an iron will. Someone who did not take suggestions. Had a big job to do. A professional or a zealot. He wouldn’t have had much sway in diverting that.

When she said “done well,” he said “thanks” and did not mean it. He felt wary about accepting any gratitude until the job was done, his mind focused mainly on the present, on feelings he’d already had, and desire to just resolve this quickly, however they could. Then He could gloat… Probably wouldn’t.

August listened to her power and thought of how it would work alongside him.

Empath. One word. But what did it mean?

He had hoped for fireballs. Actually, no. Collateral. Damage. He liked the city.

Empathy. She felt feelings? Maybe they could use that to combine with his power… He usually had to read people anyways. The best suggestions are ones that sound reasonable, those they might willingly take. To their detriment.

Cool.

She said as much as He was thinking. Same page. Good.

Maybe some day, he would work on spells to do things like make people break into hideous laughter, or to dance irresistibly. Maybe wander around in confusion, or if he tinkered with his illusions, get them to flee in palpable fear at sights and suggestions he weaved… but for now, they had what they had. And the bird man cometh.

—

This one felt madness. He was happy to do bad things if someone suggested them, and paid. He might be hard to manipulate with just suggestions, as… well, to the insane, nothing might seem reasonable, save what they want to do. And he wanted to trouble folks with birds.

He wandered around the corner, muttering to himself and to his new chicken friend. Stupid man earlier, had told him stop, but not for how long… a pigeon fluttered over to land on a street sign near the blonde one, who stood next to… stupid man.

It cooed. Then another landed, nearby. On the sidewalk. Another, above them, on the side of a building.

August noticed. “Uh. This guy again. I don’t think he fell for my suggestion… damn. Birds. Duck!!”

August dove for cover as a— where had he gotten a mallard?! — dove at him and the blonde. She had not given him her name, so blonde and “hey you” would have to do.

The guy had like 5 birds, not including the chicken. 3 pigeons, the duck, and what looked like— holy shit when had he gotten a falcon?!