Aura looked up at the moon which had just climbed in the sky, she preferred to do things in the darker hours. Cops were less annoying when they had trouble seeing who you were. She wanted to take her sister out on a tour of the city. So Aura had taken her oin a trip as soon as the moon had gone up into the sky. The night was still warm and a cool breeze blew every so often. SHe had no real destination in mind and as she thought about it, she might have wanted to set one before hand.

Their were few people out this night and So Aura hoped that would help make amber more comfortable, she knew it made her feel much more safe. They soon came to a building that looked like a flower shop, looking at it she looked back to AMber and opened the door. "let's go in, i think it's a flower shop" she said having never been in such a shop before, Looking around as they got in, she could smell the scent of flowers all over the place, which made sense as she was surrounded by them. "have you ever been ina shop like this before?" she asked amber with a smile trying to be friendly still.

Looking down She noted that her pet skunk, solkat was still following her as well. Walking through the shop she saw their were more then a few rough looking humans in the shop. "What do you think?" she said to amber with a smile. However As she did one of the rather rough looking men recognized her and approached her, Aura barely knew they had approached until one shoved her into a cart full of Plants. Aura looked back as she got up, her aura already covering her, she asked once at the men, missing but cutting through more then a few plants that "Human scum" she growled rather loudly.

Aura had promised to give Amber a tour of the city and had even offered to bring her out at night so she wouldn't have to worry about the harmful effect of the sun and could go out without her customary veil and cloak. Though she hadn't seen Abyss much since he had brought her to Sanctuary she had spent nearly every hour of the day with her new sister and her lovely pink aura. She was still not used to the concept of having a sister, let alone having a sister that actually seemed to care about her. Aura was such a wonderful person to have accepted Amber for who she was so quickly and so completely and now she was going to show her around the city.

It was a fairly warm and pleasant night out and Amber was content simply to follow her big sister around wherever it was she lead, occasionally commenting on this thing or that thing of interest and asking questions as they came into her head. She hadn't had time to get herself a pair of dark glasses yet to hide her eyes but, after talking to Aura, she wasn't even sure that she should. Aura had told her that being a mutant was something to be proud of and something that she shouldn't hide and it was actually starting to make some sense. It made her special and her sister even seemed to think that she might have a power after all, she just didn't know what it was yet. She didn't want to get her hopes up but she couldn't help but pray that she was right about that.

"Oh, I've been to a flower shop before," Amber said, smiling. She was starting to be more comfortable around Aura, even if she was still very shy around everyone else. "I don't remember them smelling or looking quite as nice as this one though." The scents brought back fond memories of sitting at the park reading with blooming flowers all around. She smiled. Her past really hadn't been all that bad, it had just been very lonely. Some people had had it much worse than she.

Amber didn't notice anyone else in the store until after she had entered. When one of the men charged Aura, she shrieked and hid under a table, black eyes peering out in fear at the scene before her. Aside from childhood bullying, she had never experienced real violence. She felt defenseless and afraid, wanting to help her sister but knowing there was nothing she could do.

This was a bad idea.

Kaitlyn had left the Sanctuary for such a short time, too. It was supposed to have been a short little errand. Go out to the grocery, get listed food items for Stephen the dining hall employee, return with food items, done. She had been given a wad of money, a list of... spices, from the looks of it... and the absolutely ridiculous notion that it was perfectly acceptable to send a nine year old with a poor understanding of the local area on errands to the local grocery. The girl had never even made it to the store. She was hopelessly lost.

Come to think of it, wasn't it this guy's job to go out and buy these things? Ms. Lori wasn't paying him to send children to do his job for him. Children who, in all likelihood, should be meeting with Ms. Dallas around 5:30 PM for tutoring. She should have just said "No."

No, more than that. She acted it out in her head: 'No, I'm not going to go out and do that for you, Stephen. I don't even care that I'm getting a special dessert out of the deal. The idea that I might get lost and never come back if I do this favor for you is making me upset.' That last part would have really gotten to him, since she had overheard them saying not to get Kaitlyn upset, or she may blow up the Dining Hall again. Stephen would immediately have done something nice to calm her down, and she wouldn't be lost out here right now. It would have been the perfect plan.

But, no. This was not the case.

It was 6:30 PM. One hour late for Ms. Dallas. She had been out here for about two hours. She needed to find a way back to the Sanctuary now. But who would know the way to the Sanctuary?

Then, the child recognized one of the two girls who were walking into that flower shop. Aura! She remembered meeting her in the Sanctuary's library. Aura would know the way back to the Sanctuary. Kaitlyn decided to walk over and ask her about it. Maybe she could even follow them home. Right after Aura finishes fighting these random violent men in the flower shop.

...What? She's fighting somebody in the flower shop? The kid could only stand outside the doorway and stare. Her mind was not able to wrap itself around what was happening at the moment.

((OOC: Sorry guys, I really wanted to post with you all last night, but my internet died. Tried for two hours! to get it to work… Really sorry!))

Why oh why were these people coming back now?! He was fairly certain that he and Cam had called off their illegal operations. Pretty definitely. But Joe wouldn’t take no for an answer, not when their plants were making him quite a bit of dough with their extra potency. He just couldn’t understand why they would quit working such a lucrative business. So sometimes he made little visits to see if they wouldn’t change their mind. Today some friends happened to come with him.

“Come on Joe!” Kai protested as ‘the boys’ starting knocking things over. “Would you guys get out of here already? I was supposed to close a while ago. I run a respectable business here-”

“Oh, respectable now are we? I guess now you think that you can just forget where you came from. Pretend you never needed a favor from some people?” His voice grew progressively louder so that it covered the entry bells as a few girls walked in, completely unaware of the situation they were getting into.

“Who do we have here?” One of the thugs commented, shoving one of the ladies. “One of your ‘respectable’ clients?” He laughed, cruelly.

Kai pinched the bridge of his nose. This was going to be bad.

To say Aura was enrages a human had laid a hand on her skin, was putting things lightly, for once she had actually wanted piece and quite so she could take her sister on a nice tour of the city. The Humans could not even let her do that, and that bit of rage made her realize something else, Amber would be in danger, not only would they hurt her ,but they could hurt her sister as well. It would not happen, Aura would guard her if she had to level the place in the process. Aura chose a more rarely used weapon, it formed almost a complete circle from her knuckle to the middle of her wrist, and then the circle began to form teeth, before rotate, she had made in Aura saw. Aura rushed forward and her assault sent drops of blood raining all over the shop, She was very sure they would not be putting him back together again.

Their seemed to be more humans in the area and Aura was so angry she simply saw every human as a threat. SHe swung at the Next human she saw, this time the saw cut it's way through weak metal bars which held many of the plants on display. Without turning back, Aura spoke in a growing voice to amber. "Watch the humans, and how they treat our kind. This is why their can never be peace between our people" Aura said, even As Several men took notice of her not that it was hard at this point. They were smarter then the first keeping their distance, Aura closed this with the man in the middle of the group, who tried to back away, he was much to slow in his reaction. Even as she swunbg her saw turned instead to a hammer, which impacted the man in his arm, even as a bullet from his gun deflected off of her Aura, covering the snapping noise of his arm.

Distracted Aura abrely realized as the other two men figuring the other girls had come with Aura decided to go after them instead, it seemed the less dangerous option. Aura abrely even heard the screams of the man, whose arm she had prolbely just destroyed, even as he knocked over several potted plants trying to get away from her. Aura turned to look at Amber, but as She did the man fired a second shot this one at the bacl of her head, if not for her Aura, she knew it would have been fatel as it was the aura took the full impact and Aura staggered forward from, her swing cutting several small trees short. this was getting rather bad, and Aura decided retreat might be the ebst option here, after all Amber was defenseless, as she had not found her power yet.

Amber's eyes darted frantically from the thugs that had attacked Aura to the door of the flower shop and back again. She was frightened, no terrified might be a better word for it. No one had ever attacked her before or anyone she had ever known, especially not someone who meant to kill. Even if they didn't appear to actually notice the small teenager hiding under the desk.

Another frantic dart of her eyes to the door and suddenly there was a little girl that she could have sworn hadn't been there a moment before. The little girl was familiar, someone she had met at Sanctuary only a day previously. She was pretty sure the girl's name was Kaitlyn and was even more sure that the girl shouldn't be here. "You should l-leave!" Amber tried to yell out to the girl but over the sounds of the fighting wasn't sure whether or not she had actually been heard.

Aura's words combined with Amber's new feelings of fear towards the little girl Kaitlyn mounted her all ready intense fear. She didn't want her sister to be hurt or worse, killed, before she had even had a chance to really get to know her. She didn't want the girl Kaitlyn to be hurt either; she was just a little girl even if she could blow things up with her mind. One of the men screamed as his arm was snapped, a horrible sound, and Amber put her hands to her ears trying unsuccessfully to block it out.

Was this the life that Amber had to look forward to? Constantly having to fear for her life and the lives of those she cared about because she and they were mutants? The tips of Amber's hands and feet started tingling. No, it was more than just tingling, they start hurting. Bad. Something was wrong. Had a stray bullet hit her? No, she didn't' think so. As the pain intensified and worked its way from her hands and feet up her arms and legs she looked down and proceeded to scream. Her hands had become gray claws and her feet, likewise, were now clawed and bursting through her old running shoes. Dull brown feathers worked their way up her arms. She screamed in terror and in agony as she watched, powerless, as her arms and legs began to transform themselves.

And just like that, Joe's day was becoming extraordinarily bad.

This wasn't in his job description. He had only come here for... business negotiations. Yeah, that's the word for 'em. He was a businessman, and a respectable one at that. Furthermore, Joe was not a fighter, but a lover. Sure, he had to break a few kneecaps every now and then, but that was business. Now more than ever, he wanted to go home. To hug his wife and his son. Take a few days off. Show up to one of the kid's baseball games. his kid still played little leagues, right?

First, he had to make it out alive.

The businessman drew his .45 just as Tony got ripped to shreds by the mutant chick. Who was this chick, anyway? Part of the Order? Sure sounded like it, what with her bull about humans treating her kind badly. If only she knew that Tony was a mutant. He could shoot lasers out of his damn eyes. Too bad they were both rolling around on the floor right now, entirely disconnected from his head.

There's some nightmare fuel.

The Order already had a good thing going, with their 'Mutant Insurance' policies. This wasn't their turf. And Joe wasn't about to let the Order muscle in on the Family's turf. As Otto's arm cracked under the force of Ms. Mutie's crazy hammer, he ran right by her, leveled his handgun to her head, and fired.

And the bullet bounced off. Suddenly, he wished that he had invested in some of the Order's mutant insurance. "Screw this, I'm ou--"

He never got to finish his sentence.

Kaitlyn couldn't understand what was going on. She didn't try to understand what was going on. She didn't want to understand what was going on. The child wanted to look away. Away from the blood splattered on the window, which Aura had just liberated from that poor man's body. Away from the gunshots. Away from that man's arm, which the kid was sure should not be bent that way. But she couldn't.

Aura couldn't be doing this. She was a nice person. Kaitlyn had talked to her personally, so she knew that she was a nice person. Nice people don't go on murderous rampages at the slightest provocation.

>>"You should l-leave!"

Was that Amber? Of course it was. Nobody else had black eyes like that. As much as Kaitlyn wanted to leave, she couldn't. She had no idea where the Sanctuary was from here. The child needed their help if she wanted to get back home. So there she stood, still unable to move. Unsure of what to do.

Another gunshot. This one hit Aura right in the back of the head.

It probably killed her. Kaitlyn couldn't hold it in any longer.

The resultant explosion knocked a large hole in the street-facing wall of the flower shop, sending glass, tables, and wall chunks flying at its inhabitants.

Luckily, all of the other pedestrians had run away after the first gunshot. Only a few unlucky taxi drivers were caught in the blast, their cars knocked through the air and sent into other nearby stores.

Up collided with down. Left collided with right. Face collided with sidewalk. Ow... The girl fell flat on her face, too dizzy to even tell which way was up.

It was worse than he thought, sooo much worse… “I’m sorry, we’re closing-” he made motions to usher the ladies out of the store, but to no avail. They probably didn’t even hear him over the commotion of being knocked over. Joe and his boys had really done it this time, assault on women was no something to be done lightly, not it Kai’s shop. He reached for the phone and the plants simultaneously. He might need to protect the girls, especially the two younger ones, if things got ugly.

He dialed three quick numbers, but then dropped the phone as the.. er.. manure hit the fan. The oldest girl, obviously a mutant, somehow created a whirling blade out of thin air and started slicing limbs. Then, though he might have gotten the following events out of order, he heard a shot. Or two.

“Screw this, I’m ou-!” Joe yelled, before being mowed down.

He wasn’t sure whether to run (and which way for that matter) or scream, all he knew was that he was totally panicking. The plants around him responded, tree trunks bending unnaturally to wrap him in a protective cocoon. Thank goodness I moved some of the trees closer to the counter…

The carnage continued outside, several plants also getting caught in the crossfire. Kai ‘heard’ all of them of the scream at the disruption of their normally quiet and peaceful lives. He felt their pain as many plants were viciously cut into or dismembered. From his protected spot, all he could do was try to make them drag the combatants away from each other.

A second shot rang out, almost immediately followed by an explosion.

Still in a ball of tree trunks, Kai was propelled away from the store front and through the door into the green house. The doorway opened wider to receive him, but the reception was not a gentle one. He crashed through shelves and the back side of the ‘house, his own personal wrecking ball. Fire followed, scorching anything in its path. It was not hot enough to burn some of the greenest plants, but that would change as the flames had their way with his building full of timber.

Kai lay in a tangle of branches, too dazed to do any more, and lifted his head to watch his pride and joy, his livelihood burn to the ground with all his friends inside.

Aura had began to retreat to amber, afraid she might get hurt, the lack of vision and commotion made things all the more worse. As she came back she bumped into a woman obviously panicked, to worried about getting back to Amber, Aura knocked her out of the way, with her Hammer aimed at her head, Aura knew from the sound she was very dead before she hit the ground. Aura heard Amber scream and began a dash to her, knocking over several plants as she did and stepping on others that ahd already been knocked over.

Kneeling down by Amber, Aura smiled at the changes taken place on her sister and tried to comfort her. "See? you do ahve power, let it flow and accept it" she said trying to help her sister, even as she turned away and deflected another bullet, this one hitting one of the lights above them, shattering a bulb, but that was nothing to what happened next as Aura heard an explosion, she tried to protect amber but was thrown over the table she wa shiding under and struck the wall hard enough to leave a huamn shaped indent in the wall, falling off of it, Aura tried to get up, but the blast had taken a good amount out of her and she found her Aura very much depleted by the blast. "Am..ber" she moaned as she forced herself up, she had to find her sister, she could not face abyss if she had let her sister down and let humans kill her, unaware the blast had been caused by a mutant.

Thinsgs seemed quite now, no more bullets, or screaming from what she could hear, just infernal ringing. breathing hard, Aura fell back against the wall she had indented and saw the damage the blast had done, the store front had been ripped away and she could hear the moaning of the ceiling as it tried to keep the roof in the air. Aura coughed as dust made it's way through her aura, it took Aura a moment to realize her Aura was no longer on. She brought it back as she tried to stand again, though her Aura was weak and her leg's not much better. She was aware much of her clothing had been ripped away as well, barely covering her dignity.

The pain intensified and Amber continued to scream. It was the most unbelievably agonizing thing she had ever experienced in all of her short life. It went even beyond her experience cutting her foot on a piece of glass and having to be rushed to the hospital for stitches. The inconceivable agony was all that she was aware of and the world fell away as it engulfed her entire being. Unbeknown to her, a tail began to sprout from the end of her tailbone and her face elongated and dozens of little teeth formed. The feathers that had started on her arms and legs traveled up to cover the remainder of her body and her posture was twisted and morphed to something almost birdlike, balancing on two feet with her tail behind her for balance. As the final changes overtook her and her neck elongated, the pain finally began to fade until it disappeared entirely, leaving her panting on the floor.

When the explosion rocked through the little flower shop, the concussive waves caused Amber to fly out of her hiding spot under the table (which was getting to be rather cramped anyway due to her larger size) and into the far wall. The resultant pain was nothing like the pain from only moments before but was none the less unpleasant. She shook her head, trying to get rid of the cobwebs that had resulted from her head smashing into the wall. She tried to speak, to find out if Aura was ok, but all that came out was a sort of screeching chirping noise. What the h*ll had happened to her?

After confirming that all of Amber's parts appeared to be in good working order (even if they were entirely foreign and definitely not human any longer) her next immediate thought was for her sister because if her sister died no power in the world would be good enough to replace her. She struggled to return to her feet, failed the first time, before succeeding the second time. Her balance was completely off and as she took a step, she almost fell over because of it. She let out another keening chirp, imploring Aura to answer her.

Deciding that it was much safer to just stand there and look around (no chance of falling that way) Amber twisted her suddenly long and agile neck around, trying to catch a glimpse of her sister, or anyone else alive for that matter. She tried to block out the sight of all that blood because it ended in a very queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. The first living person Amber spotted was the physical carnage of the place. Building and plant like debris lay everywhere. She also spotted the little girl Kaitlyn, who had caused the explosion to begin with but the only person Amber wanted to see alive was Aura, no one else mattered half so much as her sister. Just as she was starting to panic, she spotted her sister, although she didn't appear to be doing so well. Letting out another screeching chirp, she took an unsteady step towards her.

Kaitlyn stayed prone and kept her eyes closed. She didn't want to move her head, and she didn't want to open her eyes. Doing either of those things just made the diziness worse.

Soon, though, she heard an incredibly unusual sound. It sounded like something between a chirp and a screech. The chid needed to open her eyes to see what was happening, and, reluctantly, she did.

The sound came from a feathered dinosaur. It was looking around the rubble that had once been a section of the flower shop. Also of note: the shop was on fire, and Aura was missing large shreds of her clothing. Eyes closed again as the kid felt the world spinning around her even faster than it already had been. This stuff was too weird for her; she was probably dreaming. Dinosaurs are extinct.

Joe's head was bleeding. Everything looked blurry. It was hard to think. But he was alive.

Something must've hit him on the head when the explosion happened. How did that explosion happen, anyway? Doesn't matter. What did matter was the fact that he was alive. If one of these people didn't decide to finish himoff right now, he would be home free. People would be less likely to try to knock him off if he didn't look alive. Just play dead.

Who was that chick standing there, with all the pink?

The same chick who killed all the other guys he was with. That same dumb mutant supremacist broad who keeps hitting the news because she knocked off chumps like him publicly, and the police couldn't do squat about it. He suddenly felt the need to say something to her: "Hey, broad. With the pink." His voice came out a bit more slurred than he intended. "That first guy, first one of us you killed, Tony, he was a mutant. You killed one of your own. Just thought you should know."

He gave a nervous laugh. Didn't he just come up with a plan for staying alive, just a few seconds ago? Shouldn't he feel sad about Tony, or worried about his own safety? Freakin' head trauma would turn him crazy, if he didn't become a vegetable. Now he coulda sworn that he was looking at a dinosaur. That's just crazy.

Oh good! The one thing that his reoccurring nightmare had been missing was a swirling mass of fire. Of course, in reality the fire wasn’t that big… yet. Kai stepped slowly across the threshold into his greenhouse. Glass crunched under his feet. He couldn’t pinpoint the source of the fire, was it caused by the explosion?

He looked left and saw more upheaval than destruction. On the right, the same. His plants were alive for the moment, though threatened by the coming fire. Gotta find a way to save them.

Kai peered into the shoppe proper and saw that most of the people were still on the ground. Except one wasn’t human (or human shaped) anymore. Apparently, one of the little girls could change into a dinosaur.

Panic would have been the obvious choice of emotion but instead, Kai felt nothing but rage. People came in here and pushed him around, well he wasn’t taking it. Not any more. He coldly calculated the combined power of the mutants and humans still living. He needed more power and more protection. No time like the present to try out that armor…

Kai sat cross-legged on the ground and reached for help- the trees that were broken saving him would have to be preserved in him. The six or seven trees, varying in kind, were several years old and slightly smaller than his fist around. There was no other way of saving them.

Aura stumbled a bit hearing a snapping noise beneath her foot, which she barely took notice of. Aura looked around and saw what looked much like a war zone. Fire, smoke, dust bodies, blood, just like the good old days, except for the dinosaur, that was new. It took her a few moments to realize it was her sister, the memory flowed back to her, though she was still unsure what truck had hit her. "Amber...you all....right?" she said panting a bit concerned about her sister and barely letting it further register she was now talking to a giant lizard.

Tapping her Side she realized part of the issue, her bombs had gone off, well one had the other, she looked over the half pipe bomb and and dropped it. The a voice spoke something about a mutant being killed, her first kill had been a mutant? "He was? Sad" she said as she walked over to Joe rather slowly, she had wanted to shove a pipe bomb down his neck and watch it blow up, the idea seemed really entertaining. She had left her sword behind as well, figuring she would not need it traveling with her sister, she ahd been wrong.

Kneeling down at the first body she found, she formed a saw and proceded to cut into the man, given his already heavily mutilated corpse, it was quick work for Aura to saw into him and threw a rib bone, lifting her hand up from the body, she looked over the dripping crimson weappon with a morbid smile. It may have been the blast, but Aura blamed joe for the mutant's death, assuming he was the leader, though what brought her to that she could not have told anyone. Kneeling back down by Joe she took a moment to sharpen the bone, more to let joe watch then anything. Placing the white bone over the man's eye, she formed a hammer with the strength she had left, she brought it down hard, not even bothering to cover herself from the blood rain that followed.

She took no notice of Kai as she stood up and wonderd back to her sister, her work done. "My beautiful...sister" she said her Aura fading inr andom places as she tried to keep it covering her own body, barely noticing as her hammer faded back into her aura, though making littile difference. "We may....wish to exit sis" she said stopping to throw up on the corpse she got the rib bone from, and dropping that on him as well, as she wiped her lips.

Amber smelled smoke. At first she wasn't positive because everything had a confused not quite clear feel about it. Not only was she in an unfamiliar new form that was proving to be more difficult to control than her usual form, but even her senses were different than she was used to. It was almost as if her brain was wired different and even though all 5 senses that she was used to having still existed in a more or less recognizable fashion, they all acted slightly different than when she was human. If anything they were more acute, but it was difficult to be certain given how confusion everything else was presently. A look in the direction of the smell, however, confirmed her suspicions. Not only was there smoke,but there was also fire.

"That first guy, first one of us you killed, Tony, he was a mutant. You killed one of your own. Just thought you should know."

Amber might have been more worried about the man's words if she was not presently so concerned with the fact that she needed to relearn how to walk and she needed to escape the burning flower shop. In truth she was mostly concerned with escaping the burning flower shop but in order for that to happen, the walking part had to occur successfully. The fact that the man had just accused her sister of killing someone didn't fully register in her mind and besides, she knew it had been self defense anyway. These men clearly hated mutants and she couldn't blame her sister for defending herself could she? Even if someone died in the process, he had clearly brought it on himself.

Amber didn't see the hideous murder that her sister committed right beside her although she did hear the effects of it. Having confirmed that her sister was still alive and in one piece, she continued her quest at actually walking and avoiding the fire that she was certain would soon engulf the little shop. Had she, she might have had a very different opinion of her sister and even her father who had adopted her as well. However, for the time being, she remained oblivious to the worst of Aura's offenses. All that mattered, at the moment, was escaping the burning building. She took another wobbling step forward and another, figuring out how to walk, even if such walking was more than a little unsteady.

The dizziness was starting to go away. Standing up took a concentrated effort for Kaitlyn, but she knew that this was a bad place for her to be She needed to find Aura and Amber and go home. With much attention paid to remaining upright, the girl ambled towards the freshly renovated flower shop's new, larger doorway.

The sight that lay before the child nearly made her fall over. Those people are dead. Her blast must have killed some of them. No, Aura had killed them. There she knelt, smiling. Sharpening what looked like a bone. Where did she get that bone? The child didn't want to think about it. This couldn't be happening. Aura couldn't be doing this.

If only she could remove what happened next from her memory.

This was all wrong. All of it. Hadn't she decided that Aura was a good person? Good people don't do things like that. Good people don't... throw up on... what!? All of this was disgusting. Sickening. Part of her wanted to throw up. Part of her wanted to scream and run away. None of her wanted to believe that any of this was happening.

"...Aura?"

Tears fell from reddened eyes.