Chris was walking home after a hard days work - and it had been the first hard days work in his life. He'd arrived at Tropic Aqua Lagoon just before eight that morning and his new boss, a mrs Ellie Wilson, had showed him around. The first hours he'd learned how to clean the shop, how to feed the fish and how to take care of the cash register. Then, after lunch, she'd told him more about how to take care of the fishes - which species needed somewhere to hide, which species needed special food and so on. There'd actually been some customers after lunch - well, most of them just neighboorhood kids who hadn't exactly bought anything, but at least there had been some people there. And they'd actually seemed more interested in Chris than the fishes - they hadn't exactly talked to him, but as he'd stood by the counter pretending to read a magazine they'd walked around the store pretending to look at fish. It wasn't exactly the same as being stared at out on the street - in the shop, he stood behind the counter and wore the turquoise and yellow t-shirt with a happy fish on the chest, which somehow made him into an authority. At least inside the four walls of Tropic Aqua Lagoon.

Actually, he couldn't believe his luck. His mutation, that had been some kind of handicap that had prevented him from getting any job elsewhere, seemed to fit perfectly for that place. A fish mutant in a fish shop - he could see what Ellie meant with 'gimmick'. And his boss seemed like a cool old lady - she'd only freaked out once, when Chris had tried to eat a dead fish he'd found in one of the tanks. Other than that, she'd been very nice to him.

Luck seemed to be on Chris's side, for once. He'd decided not to take the bus home but instead go for a stroll - the weather was kind of cloudy and promised rain soon and the way between the fish shop and the Mansion wasn't exactly exactly scenic, on the contrary, he had to walk through some very run down areas - since he was in such a good mood. Even though he was a bit tired after a long days work he felt a very uncharacteristic enthusiasm, it felt like nothing could take him down.
He rounded a corner and continued to walk, his attention drifting from the big commercial ads that decorated the houses to the occasional car or pedestrian that went by him.

During the many months he had been spending at the mansion, he had only on very few occasions left the property. This day was just one of those days. He needed new shoes, and perhaps a few other 'necessities'. It wasn't like he was exactly made of money, but he got a little allowance from his parents that he had saved up. It was a shame however that he had used a lot from the time he went out shopping with Andrea. That time he had worn shoes that were half a number too small, they were great to look at which was the only reason he still forced himself to wear them. This time he needed shoes that looked just as good just that they fit instead.

He walked into one of the shoe stores he had previously been to before the time he moved to the mansion. One of the things on his hate list was making decisions. This wasn't even a decision between two things, but between over 20, maybe even ten after you ruled out the ones that wouldn't make the final cut. With quick glances he had already seen the ones he liked. It took him almost 25 minutes of trying shoes on, taking it off, taking it on. One of the women working in the store had her work cut out for her, with him asking for different shoe sizes every other minute. "I'm sorry, but do you have these in a 9?" he asked the lady whom had been awfully patient with him. The woman went to the back for a few minutes before she came back with a box in her hands. "Here you go" she said to him giving him the box. "Thanks" Alexander replied with a smile.

Taking the shoes out of the box, untying the laces he pulled the shoe over his foot. It seemed to fit quite well, it looked quite well too. It was down to a difficult choice between three pairs of shoes. There was this one pair he did favour between the others, but it was also a bit higher in price. After two minutes of going back and forth, he finally decided. The lady behind the counter seemed to be rather pleased that he had at last decided. After paying for the shoes he walked out of the store with the shoes in a bag.

The walk back to the mansion seemed to be more difficult than he had first planned out. As he had gone to a small café to buy himself something to drink, he later found himself walking through some rather dodgy streets. He was pretty used to this sort of things, despite growing up on the better parts of Upper West Side, and one of the better parts of Barcelona. Strangely enough seeing as his family wasn't exactly wealthy. Crossing one corner after the other he seemed to have come to terms that he was a bit lost, and perhaps walking a little in circles. He couldn't help the fact that he had never been to this part of the city before.

Stopping, looking at the street, he wondered which way he came from. That was, when he saw someone he knew was from the school. Not like it was any difficult to know who he was, not everyone had the scent of fish. "I'm sorry, you're ..uhm.. Chris right?" Alexander shouted as he jogged his way over to him. "You are from the school aren't you? I've never been to this part of the city before, and I can't seem to find my way back, and I don't really like just stopping and talk to strangers, well you are sort of a stranger, but we've crossed paths before around the school, so I figured it was safe, unless you were a spy and is now out for my blood or something." With an awkward smile followed by and awkward laugh, Alexander tried not to show signs of how Chris smelled of fish, if anything one shouldn't judge people for their appearance, or bodily smells. "Are you on your way back? If you are that would really help, I could keep you company, I don't know any jokes but I can talk a lot if I want to." Pausing for a moment, he looked around himself. "I need to remind myself that even though I've lived in New York City for years, I will still need a map."

Chris's only problem right then was that it had been many hours since he'd bathed or taken a shower - his skin was already getting kind of dry and itchy. He'd used the lotion Doc Prof had given him, but it only helped for so long. Well, soon he'd be home, then he could take a long, cold...
"I'm sorry, you're ..uhm.. Chris right?"
Chris quickly spun around, but relaxed a little when he realized that he recognized the young man who came walking towards him.
"You are from the school aren't you? [...] unless you were a spy and is now out for my blood or something."
Chris looked at the other mutant with a kind of bewildered look. Then, since he was a bit unsure how to answer that last statement, he ignored it and concentrated on answering the first question instead.
"Yeah, we're in the same classes, right? You're, uh... you're..."
He felt the awkwardness ensue as he remembered that he had no idea what the guy in front of him was named. He was Asian, but the name was something... something spanish, right? ...Cortez? No, that wasn't it. Gomez? Closer, but still not right.
"..."
After a few seconds of silence he decided that it maybe would be better to answer the last statement instead.
"No, uhm, I'm not a spy and I'm not after your blood, no."
Then, as the guy-who-had-a-spanish-sounding-name-but-not-Gomez asked if he were heading back, and Chris quickly jumped on the chance to change subject. Maybe he would remember the guy's name after a while.
"Yeah, I am. Uh, sure, you can accompany me."
Chris continued to walk, while he fervently tried to remember the other guy's name.
"...So you're from New York?"

Alexander couldn't help feeling a bit down when Chris seemed to have trouble remembering his name. For what it was, he had encountered this problem more than once. You see an Asian person, and almost expect them to talk with a heavy accent and have a family name like, Lee or Kim. With a serious look on his face, he decided that if he couldn't remember it was just fine and it was only to tell him his name. "It's Alexander."

At leas the could comfort himself by Chris being rather harmless, except for the smell it seemed that there was nothing seriously wrong. Even the smell had begun to have less affect on Alexander. Of course if he had taken a sniff he would probably regret it a little. "Good, you won't regret leading the way" Alexander said smiling as he quickly followed Chris as he began walking.

"From New York? Well not really. I was born in South Korea actually, and then I was adopted by my parents that are Spanish, which meant moving to Barcelona. Then when I was 12 my dad got a job offer at a hospital in New York city. The pay was much better so he took it, and voilà, I ended up in New York." Crossing another corner he recognized one of the buildings. It would have been strange if he hadn't seeing as he had walked past it earlier. "What about you? Somehow I don't think you're exactly from New York City." By that he meant the whole way he seemed. It was almost like spotting a tourist among the crowd. Alexander himself wasn't exactly that difficult to understand wasn't originally from New York. Despite his pretty good English, some words were just doomed to make him sound foreign. "It saddens me a little though" Alexander started, as he subbed his feet along. "I' have such a bad sense of direction sometimes, that I would get lost if you put me in a room with only one door."

The other guy seemed to notice that Chris was struggling with his name, so he offered it. Alexander. Oh, right. Chris felt more than a little embarrassed - he hated forgetting people's names. It was like saying 'sorry, you don't seem important enough for me to remember your name.' But it wasn't something personal; Chris had always had trouble remembering people's names. Well, from now on he would remember this name anyway.
"Yeah... uh, sorry," he said a bit apologetically.

Then he listened as Alexander explained where he came from. Chris nodded. That explained why he looked Asian, except for the eyes, but had a Spanish name and talked English with just a little hint of Spanish.
"What about you? Somehow I don't think you're exactly from New York City."
"Yeah, I'm not. From New York, that is. I was born and raised in the forests of Wisconsin, so I guess I'm not exactly a city kid. My grandpa took care of me, but I moved here after he died. That was... about six months ago."
He shrugged. It felt a bit weird to talk about it, it wasn't that many people who'd asked about it. He realized, with a sting of bad consciousness, that he barely thought about his grandpa these days.
When Alexander mentioned his bad sense of direction, Chris looked a bit surprised.
"Really? Oh. But it's not far from here... I think."
He realized that it probably was sounding a bit vague, so he added:
"I mean, I've not been walking around here a lot, usually I take the bus. But today I felt like walking."
He wondered if he should mention why that was or if it should sound like bragging, but he decided to do so anyway.
"I've got a job in a nearby shop," he said with just the smallest hint of pride.

"Don't worry yourself, you are hardly the only one in the world who has trouble with names. No one is perfect.... I only know your name because I suck to me bits and pieces of information from my surroundings, like a journalist eager to get the latest bit of news, only I have no interest in writing anything that is." Alexander smiled as he gave out a slight chuckle. The only reason he did pay attention to what people said was so he could know thing about them, in case he got a chance to befriend them later on. Getting friends wasn't exactly easy when most of the time you found it difficult to make the first attempt of a conversation. The case with Chris was different though. Not being interested in being lost, Chris was pretty much a shot at getting home faster. It was even a great thing to make a new friend that also lived at the school.

The forest of Wisconsin? Did that mean that he came from a small town, or did he literally mean in a forest of Wisconsin? "I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather" Alexander said in a slightly comforting tone, without sounding like he tried too much. Death was a sensitive subject, which meant it was best not to dwell on it. He knew that the fact that Chris had been living with his grandfather meant his parents hadn't been around. Knowing that he wouldn't know his biological parents weren't exactly the same, seeing as he had grown up with two adoptive parents. Though it would have been nice to have someone who were of the same race as yourself, he couldn't have asked for more loving parents despite the current situation.

"....You think.....?" He said sounding rather nervous tone. He hated hearing those words in situations like this. Not walking around here a lot? What did that mean? Did he know the way or didn't he? Panic slightly struck Alexander, but he didn't show it. Instead of panicking he should be feeling jealous of Chris. Having a job, he needed a job too. Interning didn't pay anything, but it would be an experience of a lifetime to be interning at a fashion magazine like Vogue, or for a designer.

"A job? That's great! I really need one too, I just don't know what I'm capable of, perhaps I should be looking into going to college first.... I don't know, it would probably mean I'd have to go back to my parents for money to pay for college." Oh the dilemma, what do to with life. Go to school? Get a job? Do both? Do nothing? After rounding a new corner Alexander felt kind that the street layout seemed that it was rather obvious that this was not the way he had come from after buying his new shoes. "Uhm.. Chris are you sure this is the right way, seems more run down than previous locations we've walked past to me.....I mean the school is in a rather nice area and this doesn't even come close, it's ick...scary."

Chris nodded when Alexander said that he was sorry about Chris's grandfather.
"...Yeah."
And that was all there was to say about that, actually.

Chris noticed the anxious tone in Alexander's voice when he said "...You think?..." and nodded to comfort him.
"Yeah, I'm positive. It's just a few blocks away."
However, the reply made him pay more attention to his surroundings than he'd done for a while. Come to think about it, he wasn't a 100 % positive... the street didn't look exactly like it did in his memories. Had there really been so much grafiti on the walls earlier? And that overturned rusty shopping cart, had it really been there before? Since he'd taken the bus to the fish shop he couldn't be entirely sure. But the street seemed a little too unfamiliar.
He was vaguely aware that Alexander was congratulating him to his new job, and then said something about college, but he didn't quite listen since he was still trying to match his mental picture of how the streets around them should have looked with how they actually looked. The pictures didn't match up, and it was making him worried.
"Uh-huh, that's great," he answered in a distracted way to Alexander's statement. He didn't mean to be rude by not paying attention to what Alexander said, he was just trying very hard to concentrate on their surroundings.

When a kind of nervous Alexander asked if Chris was sure it was the right way, Chris finally stopped and looked around. He turned his head from right to left and then right again, moving in a quick, birdlike way. Then he spun around to look at the deserted street behind them, once again turning his head from right to left in the same twitchy way before he spun around again and looked at the street in front of them. An empty plastic bag somersaulted it's way over the street, much like one of those bushes that that might blow through an abandoned town in an old Western movie.
Nothing looked familiar.
"Yeah, uh, we're right... right... maybe we should have made a turn, uh, there was this street... back there..."
Chris stopped talking when he realized that he was blabbering. His shoulders hung and he looked down at his feet with an ashamed expression.
"I'm... not really sure were we are right now. Uhm."

"Ooookay" Alexander said, glaring at Chris back head as he went a little in front of him. It wasn't exactly the nicest gesture to comment something not even vaguely. Due to this situation however Alexander was able to let this vague statement pass. He just wanted to get home, his feet were starting to ache because of the shoes. There was no way he would change shoes in this sort of environment, someone could just swoop by and steal them both.

That Chris found himself sure of the fact that they were going the right way didn't exactly make Alexander feel any better. Still feeling really insecure about the type of place they had walked to. The places he had walked through before teaming up with Chris hadn't been hardly as run down as this place. "I think perhaps we should have gone left instead of straight ahead by that empty store, you know the one that didn't have a door."

It was getting pretty tempting to ask for direction, but you never did that in dodgy areas like this without the risk of something bad happening. Nothing better than two mutants asking for direction to the mutant school they live in, maybe they'd even give them a tour of the area.
"Chris, I think perhaps we have wounded up on some side street around Morris Heights, or something." If it was, it most certainly would explain the empty streets, and the dodgy looking buildings. Though he had never actually been around the parts, it was not exactly a big secret that Morris Heights and the area around it was one of the poorest places in America. If it were the case, they had walked even further away from the school than he had first thought.

Chris nodded glumly when Alexander mentioned that they probably should have turned left back at some store without a door.
"Yeah, you're probably right," he sighed heavily.
Chris also thought briefly about asking someone about the directions, but just like Alexander he decided against it. Besides, they couldn't be that far away from the right way, couldn't they?
"Morris Heights?" he asked in a worried voice. "You sure?"
If they were, they were more off than he'd originally thought. Chris sighed again and turned around.
"This is just getting better and better. We should just go back a few blocks until... we... recognize..."
Chris's voice trailed off into uncertainty. On the street behind them, that had seemed totally deserted just a few moments earlier, some tall figures had gathered. Chris stopped and squinted - he was really shortsighted on land. There were four of them, and they all walked slowly towards Alexander and Chris. Purposefully. He didn't like it. His instincts told him that these guys were not just out on an afternoon stroll.

Chris turned towards Alexander, nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot and fidgeting with his hands in front of him. He tried to pretend that he hadn't seen the gang that was moving towards them, but it maybe was a bit too late for that now, considering that he'd turned around, started to walk and then halted after just a few steps.
"Uhm, what do we do? Should we go back or should we just keep moving?"
He asked since he wasn't sure if he was over-reacting or not. His instincts still screamed to him to run for it, but he was always high-strung when he was out among people. Maybe it would be stupid to run? Maybe those guys over there had no interest at all in two lost mutants. Chris hoped Alexander should know how to react - after all, the guy had lived in two major cities his whole life (three if he'd lived in a city in South Korea). He ought to have tons of street-smarts, as opposed to Chris, who was about as street smart as a pine cone.

Though he wasn't completely sure, just like Chris hadn't exactly been sure either about their location. It wouldn't surprise him if they had gotten themselves into some Morris Height area. It fit the description. It was run down, looking dangerous, and within a good walking distance from the school.
"I can't really say I'm all behind it, but I've got a pretty good hunch."
Alexander was in complete agreement as Chris began saying they should just go back and see if they found that store.
"Hey why did you just stop talking?" Alexander curiously asked Chris, turning fully around himself. His eyes widened for a minute and his pulse got higher. Four guys had suddenly appeared from seemingly nowhere. By the looks of it, it didn't exactly seem like a good thing. Normally when people, or friends in a group walked together they wouldn't stroll around like they had a target. The target being two young mutants that was lost.

Being frightened from these guys made him wish magic was real and he could just tap his heels together three times saying 'there's no place like home', unfortunately that wasn't the case. He wanted to run, but in New York City it wasn't always a good idea to run. Those guys could be armed to the bone, and if they ran, they could probably end up with mortal wounds. His heart raced. He had never experienced anything like this, nor had he gotten lost in a shabby neighbourhood either.

"Chris.." He began, speaking very low, almost whispering. "I don't reckon you have the ability to like make people like, poof?" It was a long-shot, but it was worth a try to ask. Not being sure at all about what Chris mutation was other than the fact he looked a bit strange, and smelled like a fish. Perhaps he had some hidden super strength or could spit out slimy goo that would make them unable to move.
"I don't mean to alarm you Chris, but they could be carrying guns or knifes or whatever." Alexander said, with a shivering voice.

"Hey You two!" The biggest of the guys yelled out. "You're mutants, and we dun like your kinds around here, specially that thing" Alexander knew that the guy was talking about Chris. He could hide in baggy clothes, or anything that covered most of his skin, but it wasn't at all hard to see he wasn't like other human beings. From what Alexander could see, the other guys were nodding in agreement. Idiots, probably couldn't even make their own decisions.

"He's not a thing!" Alexander quickly responded in anger. He was sure now that if they ran one way they were just going to follow, or shoot them. Why them, two innocent guys, and he knew he himself wasn't exactly a powerful dangerous mutant. "Chris, I hope you're up for a fight, because they want it. I recommend getting them off their feet long enough for us to run the heck out of here" What to do? If they could stop them for enough of a time, he could create a small scale fog, thick enough to blur the vision of the four thugs. "See that plank over there?" Alexander said to Chris, nodding his head in direction to a dirty red brick building that had a broken window. A plank that had previously covered a window, was now tossed on the sidewalk. "Use that as a bat if you have to, it's the best you've got unless you have some better idea, I'll keep them off for a short while."

A sudden gust of wind appear from no where, growing stronger and stronger. Rain began pouring down, but not over the whole area, just small enough to combine the rain and the wind. Dark clouds were above them. which stood out from the light grey clouds already occupying the sky. "I can't hold this for long." He yelled to Chris, as he saw the guys still approaching, covering their faces with their hands. "Do you think you can find stuff and perhaps.. I don't know throw it at them?" Alexander knew he could probably do more, if he knew how to properly do it. A little hail would have been perfect, but he had never mastered lowering the temperature.


((It's a little bland. I could have done it better with more hours to spend, and I apologize, but I just kind of went with it the way it is now.))

As the group of men got closer, Chris sighed heavily. He was frightened, of course, but mostly he just felt despondent. He should have known this would happen. He normally had a very negative outlook on life, so when he for once had been feeling a bit positive and had started to think that the world maybe wasn't such a bad place after all - well, of course something bad had to happen to show him just how wrong he was.
When Alexander asked if Chris had the ability to make them go 'poof', Chris just shook his head.
"I have the ability to hold my breath for really really long under water, but somehow I don't think that will help us much here. Sorry."
He hated to disappoint, but facts were facts. He didn't knew what Alexander could do - for all he knew, the guy could have ferocious powers that could put their enemies on fire or make them believe that they were chickens. But on the other hand, if Alexander had had extremely powerful abilities like that he wouldn't have needed to ask if Chris could take care of them.
When Alexander mentioned that they might be armed, Chris answered glumly:
"...actually, that does alarm me."

When the biggest guy screamed out to them, Chris flinched. Of course he'd been prepared for them to start shout or attack or something, but a small part of him had kept hoping that he himself and Alexander had just been overreacting or paranoid, and that the other men would just go past them without doing anything. Once again the universe proved to him that it was futile to get his hopes up. Besides, it was never nice to get called 'thing'.
But then Alexander responded, quite angrily, that Chris was not a thing. Chris gave the mutant beside him a surprised look - Alexander had seemed just as frightened as Chris, and he hadn't expected that Alexander would stand up for him that way. Especially since most of this was Chris's fault - they wouldn't be here if he hadn't led them the wrong way, and the men who now was sneering at Alexanders response probably wouldn't have known that Alexander was a mutant unless he'd been hanging around with Chris.
But Alexander actually seemed to have an idea - well, not exactly an idea, it was more like an act of desperation. But at least it was something. Chris saw the plank Alexander nodded at and nodded back. The men were getting closer, snickering among themselves. They looked like they would enjoy this.

Suddenly a strong wind appeared, blowing away the trash from the sidewalks and ripping at the people's clothes. Chris lifted up his hands to shield himself from the wind and the rain, but then he realized that it was Alexander who was causing it and that this would be the perfect opportunity to grab that plank. The approaching gang seemed to have noticed that the weather wasn't exactly natural, and one of them actually seemed a bit frightened.
"Hey, this... it's that Chinese guy who's doing this!"
But their leader just looked at him with something that reminded about contempt.
"C'mon, wind's never hurt nobody. Let's get 'em!"

Chris hurried over to the plank and lifted it, careful to not hurt himself on the nails that were protruding from the ends. But the nails actually made it to a decent weapon - it wasn't heavy enough to do much damage on it's own, but the mean-looking rusty nails would hopefully make anyone who was getting close to him think twice about attacking.
Chris adjusted his grip. His long, delicate fingers weren't ideal for gripping things, and a regular human hand with shorter fingers would have been more ideal for the task.
One of the men approached him slowly - but now Chris realized that it was a very young man, he couldn't have been older than Chris himself. He was tall, at least a head taller than Chris, and was wearing a grey hoodie that had been drenched in the rain. He was still shielding himself from the rain with one arm, but in the other hand he was holding something that mostly looked like a switchblade. Chris went cold. The last time someone had attacked him with a knife another mutant named Meld had attacked the knife-guy in a flurry of sharp blades, but somehow he doubted that she would save him this time.
When the other guy attacked, Chris reacted almost without thinking about it - he dodged the blade, swung the plank as hard as he could and hit the side of the other guy's knee with a sharp Thud! The impact was so hard that the plank flew out of his hands and landed a few feet away, but it worked - the guy in the hoodie howled in pain and surprised and dropped to the ground, clutching his knee. Chris backed away from him, wondering briefly about how much damage he'd done, and then looked up. And his eyes widened in surprise.
"Alex, look out!!"
The big guy and the one who'd been scared of the change in weather was still fighting against the weather, but the one behind them had lifted up a half brick and was now throwing this at Alexander.

((No problems, sorry for taking forever to answer!))

It was just as he feared. Chris didn't have any flashy powers, no teleportation, no combustion of scary criminals. Though being able to hold your breath for a long time could come in handy at certain times, this was most certainly not one of those times. Hopefully they could get out of danger without any serious injuries, at least when it came to him and Chris. Alexander couldn't help but to feel deep in his gut, that if he hadn't gone out to buy shoes, he wouldn't be in this kind of situation. It didn't help that if Chris had ended up in this alley alone with these guys, he probably wouldn't have lasted long, unless he could run extremely fast.

The wind continued to blow, and the rain was still falling over the little part of the alley. "Hey, this... it's that Chinese guy who's doing this!"
Alexander heard one of them yell out in the wind. It made him upset that people just figured that every Asian in the world could just as well be Chinese. Because surely there was no vast differences between Koreans, or Chinese, or even Thai people.
"C'mon, wind's never hurt nobody. Let's get 'em!" The apparent leader shouted out in return. He was wrong though. Wind had hurt a lot of people, it had even killed. Had he never heard of hurricanes, or even tornadoes?
"I'm not Chinese" Alexander yelled angrily, his anger increasing the wind strength a notch up.

The pressure on his both body and mind would only increase drastically the more aggressive the weather got. But the more upset and angry he got, the weather would often showcase just what he was feeling. Chris was 'armed' with nothing more than a plank, while some of these guys were packing on muscle. At least the plank seemed to have a few nails still attached to it. In the time he tried to make the wind get even stronger, he saw that one of the younger guys in the group had gotten out from his little windy defence, and was now going at Chris.
Panic raced inside Alexander's body when he saw that the guy was holding something that seemed like a knife of sorts. Luckily Chris was able to dodge, and strike the plank in the guys knee. The hit even got Alexander to think about how much that had to hurt.

Due to following more closely on Chris. Alexander hadn't realised that the guys fighting of the wind and rain was getting closer, and until Chris had shouted out, not realised that one guy behind the big guy was about to throw a half a brick aimed at him. Instinctively he tried to dodge the brick by throwing himself down on the ground. Though this helped, he was hit by half of the half brick at the side of his arm. Despite the then current wind resistance, the hit had hurt quite a bit leaving him slightly off focus thus making the weather slightly reverse.
This gave the other guys an opportunity to get the upper hand by partially surrounding. Despite the pain in his arm, he quickly got up. In his hand he still had the plastic bag with the shoes and the shoe box. With this he quickly dashed into the closest guy who was only set back a little. The second guy, who was also the biggest of them, didn't even seem to get affected much.

Alexander backed up slightly as he got not too far away from Chris. While trying to buy himself some time by swooshing around the bag. He finally with some adrenaline, and some desperation, managed to make hail fall from the sky. Though because of the lack of time, some of these hail corns weren't exactly big. But he wasn't stupid. The more time the hail was up in the air, the bigger they would get. For now, it was just enough to make the thugs, and partially Alexander get sprayed with small lumps of ice.
His mind was racing, and his body ached, his arm even more. "Chris!" He yelled out. As he saw that the guy with the newly given knee injury was unsteadily getting up at his feet.
Hopefully the guy wouldn't give Chris any trouble, or that he calling for him would get him extra attention from the other guys. It would however give Alexander more time to plan an offensive hail storm, or for the first time create even more vicious weather. These thugs probably didn't know, but hail usually come from the same clouds that are often known as thunderclouds.


((Well seeing as you had to wait for me now anyway it doesn't matter, I would have replied sooner, but it was either posting to you or go shopping in the heat of Paris.))

While the knee-guy was rolling around groaning on the floor and clutching his abused knee, Chris turned around to see how Alex was doing (sometimes in the past 2 minutes "Alexander" had become "Alex" in Chris's mind, mostly because "Alexander" was too long when you were thinking in a hurry). At first the sight of the other three guys fighting against the wind was encouraging since it seemed that Alex would be able to hold them off, or at least force them into keeping their distance, but then he realized that the men were slowly making progress and that the distance between them and the mutants were steadily shrinking.
Chris had an almost panicky look on his face, and he wasn't even using the brief pause to fetch his nail plank in case any of the guys came too close. That was because at the moment a battle was taking place in his mind - Instincts VS Conscience. Just a few months ago he would have listened blindly to his instincts and taken this opportunity to save his own sorry life by turning around and getting away from there as fast as possible. And it still was tempting - his knees was shaking like leaves in the wind, like his legs tried to tell him not just to stand there but to move on. Like, now. It took an actual conscious effort not to just obey his legs.
It was his conscience that forced him not to listen to his instincts. Even though he was worthless at fighting and probably just would make everything worse if he stayed, he just couldn't leave Alex there to stop the bad guys while Chris heroically saved his own sorry hide. Alone Alex wouldn't stand a chance, but 2 against 4... well, it still felt pretty hopeless, but at least it was more even.

While he stood there undecided he suddenly felt something small and hard hit the back of his head. He looked up and noticed that it had started hailing - white, round hail that was landing on the wet sidewalks. It didn't hurt, but the hail was increasing. Chris had spent most of his childhood outdoors and knew how devastating a serious hailstorm could be, so he backed until he stood with his back close to a worn brick wall, partly secured from the hail by the protruding roof. The attacking men didn't seem to realize that they should be looking for shelter, and Chris closed his fists and realizing he was hoping for them to get struck down by hail. Golf ball-sized hail.
"Chris!"
Chris quickly turned around when he heard Alex's shout and realized what a mistake he'd made when he'd thought that the knee-guy was out for count. The knee guy had been getting up on his feet, even though his knee was badly injured, and had sneaked up on Chris from the left while Chris was occupied with whether he should run away or not and the hail. Chris tried to dodge away, but the knee guy had already drawn back his hand and was now aiming a hard punch toward him. And since he was taken by surprise, Chris didn't manage to dodge the punch entirely, just turn his side against the attacker so that the punch landed on his right arm instead of in his stomach.
Wham!
The knee-guy couldn't put much power in the punch since he had problem balancing on his hurt leg, but the punch was hard enough to send Chris down on the ground. He gasped and tried to creep away from the bigger man, the pain in his arm hadn't yet kicked in, but the man just grabbed his collar and lifted him up on his feet. The man's spotty face was twisted in a grimace of pain, anger and disgust as he leaned in close towards Chris's face and hissed.
"That hurt, you little f***er!"
Chris's breath was fast and shallow, and he was trying to keep his own face as far as possible from the attacker while he was trying to squirm his way out of the grip, but it was no use. The man was to angry to let him go.
Chris was in a state of near-panic, but he still realized that if Alexander stopped doing what he was doing neither of them would stand a chance. So he shrieked shrilly:
"Alex!! Don't stop... whatever you're doing! Don't come over here or we're both screw-!"
The last word was cut of when he was suddenly pressed against the wall, his feet suddenly hanging a foot above ground. He gripped around the other guys wrists and was trying to struggle his way free, but the other guy was a foot taller, weighed about 60 pounds more and was much, much stronger. Chris tried to kick his way free, but his opponent didn't care about Chris's weak, unplanned kicks and was sure to keep his injured knee away from Chris.

Suddenly his hand was gripping around Chris's throat, hard as a vice. Chris immediately realized that the other man was trying to strangle him. He must have dropped his knife earlier. Despite his hopeless situation, Chris suddenly felt a glimmer of hope. He hadn't lied to Alexander when he'd said that he could keep his breath for long periods of time - if he took a really deep breath he could stay under water for over 9 minutes. He hadn't taken a long breath now, but he thought he had air enough for at least 3, 4 minutes. Knee guy didn't need to know that, though.

Chris had never been a good actor, but now he realized that his life was probably hanging on this performance. So he adapted an even more panicky expression, which wasn't very hard since he was on the verge of panic anyway, his big round eyes bulging out in shock. He started to gasp for air and clawed on the mans hands and arms, but that didn't do much harm since Chris didn't have any nails. He also started to thrash even more wildly - if it made the guy drop him, so much better - and the thrashing ended in something that reminded more about spasms.
He saw how the guy who tried to strangle him was grinning triumphantly, and realized that the guy obviously thought it was working. He only hoped that Alex wouldn't be fooled and try to come to his rescue, turning his back towards the bad guys.

The pressure on Alexander had greatly advanced to an even higher level. He wasn't a born fighter, situations like this was completely new to him. Using his powers offensively, or rather defensively had never occurred to him earlier. Usually when practising his the use of his powers, he would just gradually change weather effects, from a little breeze to a little rain. This was different. Here he had to use them to keep himself, and Chris from serious injuries. There was just small issues when it came to this, the more severe weather, the more strain he put on himself. Though the weather effects he created wasn't exactly that severe at the moment, the combination of concentrating and panicking was enough to make his mind work on overtime.

Alexander had never had always relied on others when there was hard times ahead. His friends had always helped him through situations that could have ended in fights. Of course this was before he let it be known that he was a mutant. Though there was some that didn't mind, other's where frightened. In situations like that, you always learn who your real friends are.

His little plan hadn't exactly gone exactly like planned. The hail never really reached the sizes he wanted, and what would happen if they did? Would he too suffer the same fate as the thugs? To be effective the hail corns had to be pretty big, and the way it was now, even he could risk getting hit. With these clouds already in place however, he could perhaps be able to create a lightning bolt or two. However he had never done it before. With such unpredictable power, and how it could potentially draw more unwanted attention could make the situation even worse. What if he messed up and hit Chris with it instead of the thugs?

The hail continued to fall, and finally one could see a considerable growth. Though not exactly golf balls, they were at least resembling the size of an acorn. The hail alone hadn't been enough to keep the thugs off, not with their current size. He needed a plan before this got out of hand, he he made the wind too strong, the hail would really get out of control, and probably not be able to reach a bigger size that hit where he wanted it to hit.
The mutant had no choice, he blinked multiple times. It was either making stronger winds, or getting beaten up, a chance he had to take.

Alexander knew he couldn't do this for a long time. Once he got back to the school, he would be signing up for the first self defence class he could find.
Quickly getting to his feet he managed to get to a more safe distance from the thugs before they where able to react too much. It would have been a great opportunity for him to run away from the entire fight, but he knew that leaving Chris behind would only be a disaster. Alexander was a better person than that. Wind began gaining speed again. He knew that he had to get up to at least a gale force strength for it too be effective enough to keep them off. If he managed to get Chris behind him in time, he could perhaps muster up enough strength to blow the thugs off their feet. That would give them enough time to run the heck out of there. Hail was still falling in one area, while a moderate gale wind kept the thugs at a little safe distance from now.

When turning his attention over at Chris, he quickly saw that the other guy punched Chris in the arm. With Chris down, he knew that there was even more trouble brewing. Alexander widened his eyes as he saw the guy grabbing Chris by the collar. While he was squirming and struggling to get away from his grip, he said some inspiring words.

>"Alex!! Don't stop... whatever you're doing! Don't come over here or we're both screw-!"

He was right, if he stopped now, they would be pretty much defenceless. Alexander knew that he had to get himself over to Chris, one way or another. But the sight of seeing Chris being pressed against the wall, strangled by that guy was was so much bigger than they were. Alexander panicked even more. Once Chris began showing signs of something that looked like spasm he understood that this was really serious. His instincts told him to drop whatever he was doing and run over and rescue Chris. Then he recalled something Chris had said earlier.

>"I have the ability to hold my breath for really really long under water,

If he was able to hold his breath for long under water, did that also mean he was able to do the same over the surface? It was a risk he had to take. Alexander turned his attention back to the three other thugs. Clinching his fists, he took a deep breath. This was for all the times he had been hassled with in the past. The wind picked up speed. Every loose item, such as plastic bags, soda tins, even loose planks was flying in the air like bullets. The wind strength was reaching gale strength. Alexander's faced turned bright, in all the concentration, he wasn't able to breathe properly which resulted in not breathing. Despite also being slightly affected by the wind, he stood steadily on the ground. A little more strength and they would most likely fall over, or at least not being able to move well whatsoever.

His bag was flapping him hard on the side of his body, and the bag with the shoes was fluttering heavily on his wrist. The pounding on the side of his arm was still there. One thing was for certain, if they got out of this without any serious injuries. That would pretty much hurt tomorrow. "Chris!?" Alexander yelled out, he just had to know if he was all right. "If you can hear me, you have to get behind me, I can't control the direction of the wind. If I increase the strength you'll be affected too." The mutant wasn't sure if Chris was able to hear within all the commotion. The only bad thing was that if Chris could hear it, that would mean that the other thug that was fighting Chris would too. If Alexander used too much power now, he wouldn't have enough strength later on, which in the end could make it even more difficult to escape, seeing as these thugs weren't off the giving up easily type.


((I am sorry if my reply is a bit of a mess, I've been a bit busy, so I had to make a hasty reply. Didn't want to have it hanging over me for too long, just in case something came up. Also I was a bit unsure where to go with my post, so it doesn't make much sense, and since I want to prolong the fight for at least a couple more posts, I didn't want to go to any drastic lengths.))

It felt like his throat was on fire. He had thought it would be no worse than keeping his breath for a couple of minutes, but then he hadn't counted on the pain of being hanging from your neck. So even if the spasms were faked, the look of pain and panic on Chris's face definitely weren't. The guy who was strangling him was grinning wildly, and Chris suddenly realized that he was probably insane. Which kind of thug strangled his victims instead of just beating them up? A crazy one.

Chris felt how the wind was getting stronger and stronger - garbage and plastic bags were dancing like leaves in the wind and both the young mutant's and the thug's clothes were thrashing in the wind. He realized that it had to end. Now. So he flailed in a last, desperate spasm and then went limp, his head bobbing listlessly over the other's arm. The guy waited a cople of seconds and then dropped him. Chris had to fight his urge to use his arms and legs to soften his fall and landed with a heavy thud on the sidewalk, his back still leaning towards the wall. It took all self-discipline he had to not scream out loud - it hurt like h*ll and he wouldn't be surprised if he'd busted his tail bone.
"Hey."
It was hard to hear over the roaring of the wind, but the guy who'd strangled him was actually talking to him. He was probably trying to get some kind of reaction. When he didn't get any he prodded with his foot on Chris's slumped-over half-sitting figure. Chris told himself to sit absolutely still, even if every instinct in his body screamed to him to open his eyes and get away from there. The instinct was so strong that it almost overpowered his screaming lungs - he needed air, like, now. But he knew that if he tried to just take a small mouthful of air he wouldn't be able to stop himself from immediatly starting to breath in hungry, desperate gasps, and then all the faking had been for nothing.

Suddenly the guy kicked him in the side. It wasn't a very hard kick, just enough to send him down on his side, but it still felt. Chris tried to lay absolutely still, and that was when he heard Alexander scream to him to get behind him. Chris could understand that - this wasn't just wind anymore, this was a storm. But he couldn't move an inch as long as the thug stood between him and Alex!
Finally he dared to open his eyes, just a little. And when he saw that the man who'd attacked him had turned his back against him and was going for Alex - slowly, fighting against the wind for every step - he finally opened his mouth and drew in air in his lungs - fresh, lifegiving air. His throat hurt with every breath he drew, but right then he didn't care - right then air was more important than a sore throat.

When he looked up again, he realized that he had to do something. The hail had gotten worse and he shuddered with every piece of ice that struck him and covered his head with his hands - the thugs were doing the same. Three of them could barely move because of the storm - as he watched, one of them lost his balance and fell to the ground with a shriek. But the one that had been strangling him was slowly approaching Alexander from behind.
Chris looked around desperately, still breathing heavy, and something glinted. He blinked and looked again, and suddenly started to crawl forward toards the glinting thing. Crawling around on the ground wasn't recommended if you wanted to keep your clothes clean, but right then he couldn't have cared less about his clothes. His hand closed around the handle of the swithcblade knee guy had wielded earlier - when he'd dropped it it had gotten stuck in the grid of a manhole. Really, what were the odds?
Chris pulled out the weapon and continued to crawl towards the knee guy. He was still breathing heavily, but he had an angry ook in his eyes that was very uncommon for him, and he was crawling very fast.

The thug was closing in on Alexander and was just a few feet away when Chris reached him.
Switchblade, meet thug's calf.
Most people thought Chris was a very peaceful guy, and in a way he was. When he got in trouble he prefered to run away or hide behind others instead of fighting. This was mostly because he was weaker than most people and had a very strong survival instinct, just like a rat. But when a rat has been forced into a corner it can get really nasty.
The guy screamed and toppled over, but not before Chris had managed to give him some more deep gushes in his leg (he had consciously chosen the leg that already had an injured knee). He wasn't a very violent young mutant, but right then, with blood drops and a ferocious expression on his face and a knife in his hand, he could have fooled anyone.
Chris crept past the screaming young man - he didn't trust his legs enough to stand up - and kept the knife if the injured man should attack him again, but it seemed like he was too occupied with being in fetal position, clutching his leg and howling. The mutant noticed. not without some satisfaction, that it would probably take a great deal of physical therapy if the young man should be able to walk without a limp again. When Chris was behind Alex he looked up.
"I'm here," he said, but he still was out of breath and didn't know if he could be heard over the wind and the screaming guy. "Give them your best, will you?"

((Really, it's no problems at all and it's good that you prolonged the fight, it gives me some time to react.))