It was looming the end was drawing ever closer and the fear and hatred of the end in sight continued to dwell on the young winged angel, despite the end being near he chose to not ruin what little days left by dwelling on the end that he knew he could not escape. Yes, Summer was coming to an end which only meant one thing… school was drawing nearer and nearer, what sucked even anymore there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Sitting on the grass on the grounds of the mansion near his and Kai’s tree (that’s right their tree) he opened his eyes slightly and looked up to blue sky and glanced at a few clouds, he knew much wouldn’t change with school coming closer and closer, when it arrived he was going to do what he always did, skip. It was what he was good at, one of the few things he excelled at, and back home his dad said he should have gotten an award for skipping. Of course Carrick was aware that his dad was kidding but still, his father knew why he skipped even if Carrick never discussed it with him or his mother. He was positive she knew as well.

It didn’t take a genius to know why either, if anyone really truly knew Carrick they would know why he avoided school so much, it was the environment. Sure here at the school he felt welcome, even if he stood out sometimes he never really felt alone. Not like back home, it was difficult enough being the son of one of the biggest known telekentic’s in all of Ireland, but the fact that he had wings and a tail… to those that weren’t afraid of talking to him they picked on him.

When his father did nothing (only because Carrick told him nothing) the kids kept picking on him, beaten up, ridiculed placed in lockers… long story short it was tough growing up with no friends, well friends other than his family. That all changed however when his father told him he was going to study abroad. His father said it would build character he said was desperately needed.

Despite the begging and pleading and even the crying he found himself on a boat and a few weeks later he finally stepped on the shores (docks) of the home of the free. It was then he decided it was time to live his own life, if his father wanted him to build character he was going to make sure next time they saw each other he’d have too much character for his father to handle.

Fast forward a year and a half and here he was, older maybe not wiser but more experienced, however even if he learned as much as he did those feelings he had associated with school didn’t waver, how could it so many years being picked on? Why would he feel differently about it, so it wasn’t a surprise when school came around he would skip, and it wasn’t a surprise he acted out as the class clown, it was his day of making school feel less like school, if the kids were laughing they wouldn’t pick on him. He knew it was different here at the mansion but still… bad habits are always the hardest to break. That and he didn’t really want to break his bad habits.

Wings open under him he felt the warmth of the sun on each feather as if he ran on solar energy like the tree did behind him. A yawn and a tail flick and he sat upright eyeing a Frisbee coming towards him. Hand shooting upwards and catching it he felt the pang of a sting when it connected. It had been a while since he had played Frisbee, a year? He couldn’t remember but he remembered how to play.

Standing upright Carrick found the kids who it belonged to and he debated dropping the Frisbee and walking away, it was Scott something or another and his gang… Carrick didn’t like them to much it was simple as that, they thought they were superior due to their abilities Scott could turn to parts of his body to steel and his buddies were cut from the same loaf of bread, plain old boring white bread.

“Hey Rat with wings toss it here!” Scott said with a smug grin on his face, again Carrick debated tossing it over to him and then he thought about dropping it. He didn’t move but his tail flicked behind him, “Rat! I said toss it!”

Nodding his head Carrick did what was requested of him, however he might not have done exactly what Scott wanted to happen. He tossed the Frisbee however it was in the opposite direction of Scott in fact it was such a fine throw it managed to get stuck in a nearby tree. Something it seemed Scott was expecting for when Carrick turned to Scott with a grin on his face he felt cold steel on his face, ”There you go yo-oph!” before he could call him anything he got hit in the stomach the wind getting knocked out of him. Falling to the ground his broken glasses fell to the ground something warm was streaking down from his eye brow.

Once again Carrick did something that was counter productive to his well-being.

Verdy was stretching her legs, wandering around on the mansion grounds with blissful nothing to occupy her. Her only pair of shorts, new since she started work, bared the skin on her legs to the warm summer air. There wasn’t long left to regain what had once been a brilliant tan.

She was considering asking one of the staff about classes, having never finished school she found that out in the ‘real world’ there were some things that she really ought to have stayed and learned. Maths and English especially. Her mind was just outlining the details of how exactly to phrase her request- without sounding creepy at twenty wanting to sit in with a class of kids- when shouting caught her attention.

~“Rat! I said toss it!”

Kids at the mansion were like kids everywhere. Albeit with different kinds of skills. They still played with each other, and gave each other nicknames and. Beat each other up?!

“Hey!”

She thought she recognised those wings, and she might have passed the other boys a hundred times in the hall but not noticed. She was noticing now. Instead of her shout having the desired effect of scattering the younglings they seemed like they would be stubborn. She suddenly missed her jeans, having that much leg exposed made her feel a little vulnerable.

The stupidity of that feeling took a second to sink in. She was a twenty-year-old grown woman, in body if not in mind, and they were still children. At the very least she could report them and have them put in detention. Before that happened, she would have to figure out who they were, and what exactly she had seen. Her long legs (true, a little pasty from their lack of sunlight) brought her swiftly closer and she frowned at them.

“What’s going on?”

The aim was to be as little threatening as possible. As mutant children they may not have had full control, and to cop who knows what in the face, on purpose or by accident, simply because she made them made would be a dampener on what was so far a lovely day.

Raven was currently sitting perched in a tree, her backpack hanging from one of the branches beside her. She never went anywhere without the bag, just in case she should get a petition for a reading, or in case she should need something in order to bargain with one of the nearby crows. Blackwing wasn't currently in sight, but she could still feel him through the connection and knew he wasn't far away. He was almost never far away and if she should ever need him, she knew he'd be there in an instant. A dozen crows shared the tree Raven was currently residing in, taking advantage of all the free food the human children pretty much just threw at them. She pointedly ignored their chatter finding the students far more interesting.

It was sunny and warm out, just the kind of day that Raven most enjoyed. Not only did she very much like the feel of sun on her skin, but this was when the human children and teenagers were most active and therefore most interesting. It never got boring watching them and trying to decipher why they did some of the crazy harebrained things that they did. Children at least tended to make more sense than adults. Play was something that children and ravens alike tended to enjoy and, in fact, one might accuse Raven of having her life centered around play of a sort. Especially now that she was at the Mansion and didn't have to worry at all about the usual practical things of life such as money and rent. She didn't even have to worry about food, imagine that, for the first time in her life it was just there for the taking whenever she wanted it. No one even yelled at her if they caught her taking food from the kitchen!

“Hey Rat with wings toss it here!”

Even if Raven's ears had not been as sensitive as they were, she still would have had no problem hearing that utterance. Her head swiveled around to see a confrontation between a boy with rather lovely feathered wings and a group of students. A moment later a frisbee was thrown directly into her tree and the kids started attacking the winged boy.

Raven began cawing angrily at the kids, causing all the crows in her tree to start cawing as well and together they made quite the impressive racket. If not for the fact that a second woman appeared, trying to stop the kids from hurting the poor winged boy, Raven would have commanded all the crows to start mobbing the kids right then and there. For that matter, she still might do so. After all, bird-types had to stick together an those were some very impressive wings.

Henrietta had gone outside, hoping to get some fresh air. She was bored and it seemed like everyone had something to do, except for her. The brunette’s hair was down and she wore a lime green sundress that came to a little above her knee. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and sported silver flats. A pair of small silver hoops picked up the sunlight and reflected it back off, which made then very noticeable. The teen walked around aimlessly, looking for something to do or someone to talk to. She did, eventually, come across something interesting. It wasn’t a good interesting though.

A mutant had been lying down. Something must've happened and a boy walked over and punched him. The teen’s eyes widened and she ran towards the group. When she neared, she noticed a woman asking them what was going on, but then heard a loud, bird noise come from one of the nearby trees. There was a girl in the tree along with a bunch of crows or something, cawing angrily at the boy who had punched the other boy. Henri blinked, slightly confused about the situation. After taking a moment, she walked up to the woman.

“Hey, what’s all this?” The girl’s blue eyes scanned over the group of kids that had seemed to be playing. She walked up to the boy who was punched and kneeled next to him. “Hi, are you all right? What’s going on?” Henrietta noticed the glasses broken on the ground. She picked up the shattered things and looked to the boy. “Your glasses are busted all to pieces. Do you have another pair?” The girl’s features were soft. Henri wasn’t sure if she should touch him or not. Carefully, the girl put her hand on his shoulder. “I can help you up if you need it.” A smile spread on to her freckled face. “I’m Henrietta Braun. What’s your name?”

Another hit this time to the mouth and Carrick felt a fat lip already developing. Wincing slightly and trying hard to not swallow any blood that was now in his mouth (an act he failed miserably at) Carrick coughed and looked up when he heard a female’s voice, it was familiar and he only did happen to meet her once, seen her a few times but never had a long enough conversation with her to say “hey” when they passed in the halls.

The first thing Carrick noticed were he pale legs, they reflected the sunlight slightly and he debated giving her a deadpan look and a sarcastic comment. What was really going on here? It looked pretty obvious to Carrick; then again maybe she was as sharp as a beach ball? Mentally shrugging he turned his attention to the taste of copper in his mouth. Stomach lurching and he felt the need to vomit but didn’t before he could the sound of birds, crows to be exact started to laugh and sing in a tree nearby.

He didn’t know why but wanted to use this as this as a distraction, pushing himself up and ready to lunge forward at he felt something draw near, turning his attention with a small look of fear Carrick’s stomach muscles tensed ready for an impact that would never come for when he turned he was surprised, it was another girl.

“Hi, are you all right? What’s going on?”

Despite the pain and fear Carrick laughed slightly followed by a small cough, ”Why the hell does everyone keep asking that?” Carrick voiced weakly as he shook his head, ”Just sunglasses, nothing important…” Carrick said as he was regaining his composure, he hated fighting but what more he hated getting bullied and this was exactly what was happening.

“It’s just some class mates playing catch, right Rat-errr Carrick?” said Scott his hand no longer covered in silver due to him deactivating his mutation. Carrick said nothing as he felt the gentle touch on his shoulder, he turned his head slightly to look to the girl and his expression softened. He felt defeated; he knew he couldn’t win the fight not using brute strength anyways at least not in this form, but he still would have liked it if no one was there to see him like this. He felt weak, and it showed on the girl named Henrietta’s face when she introduced herself and offered to help.

Again Carrick said nothing but looked up slightly to Scott and his two lackeys’ both of whom were looking dumber and dumber by the second it was as if they didn’t know how to respond to the two women and all the birds that were acting as a distraction. Carrick looked down when Scott smirked and he turned his back in victory, “Come on guys, let’s get back to the game, leave the rat to play with the girls, where the runt belongs anyways.”

Once those words reached Carrick his tail flicked behind him, showing his irritation and frustration, he was weak and small and picked on, and now thwy were going to pick on him even more seeing as two girls and a tree full of birds came to his aid. His hands dug into the dirt and he felt the grass lift into his hands. No, he was small and might be weak but if Scott wanted to throw down he’d go down swinging not looking as weak as he did now, hell best case scenerio he loses the fight and they stop picking on him because they know he won’t put up with the crap they try to feed him.

Looking up with blood smeared face on one side and tear streaked on the other Carrick released the grass and opened his wings pushing the girl who offered to help away from him, ”ARGGHHH!” Carrick yelled out in a battle cry that turned into an Eagle’s screech as if he was about to shift, something he never tried mid-flight before. During the screech he jumped into the air after Scott and wrapped his arms around him knocking him forward and pulling him to the ground.

Verdy turned a serious frown of disapproval on what seemed to be the leader. It was the type of look that conveyed exactly how little one could think of a person. What she had walked in on had not been a friendly game of catch. Or a friendly anything, actually. She was glad that the other girl was there to look after angel-boy, it left her open to glare with full force at the other boys. Two of them were shrinking away, the desired effect, but the ringleader seemed oblivious. She was never cut out to be a teacher.

Finally the boy who had been throwing punches seemed to give in, turning away with a final verbal jab. She felt a flare of anger, she was no lesser game-player, no matter how pale her legs were in the sunlight. That same flare of anger was apparently felt by Carrick, his tail flicking back and forth like some gigantic feathered cat. She was trying to think of something fitting to call after the bully-boy, as immature as it was, when a flurry of movement and wings stopped her.

Carrick threw himself after the boy, and although it seemed fair for the bully to get what was coming to him, Verdy had seen Carrick’s claws in the fight with Cthulhu. No-one, no matter how much of a jerk they were being, really deserved to have those ripping into their flesh. A split second as she figured out how many bruises and how much blood she had seen on Carrick. Fair was fair, punch for punch, bruise for bruise. She hesitated for another few seconds. She had gotten herself involved when the violence was going one way, she couldn’t really leave when it was going the other.

“Hey, hey, hey! Boys! Stop it!”

Never. Ever. Cut out to be a teacher. She tried to remember how the teachers at school had dealt with fights, but all that came to her was her geography teacher saying he would never get involved in a catfight between two girls. Seeing how catlike Carrick had been, doubled with the fact of wings and tail, it was probably better if she kept her hands (and other body parts) well out of the way.

Raven didn't like the fact that kids were picking on a winged mutant, a mutant that looked to be half bird from what she could tell from her perch in her tree. No, she didn't like that at all and she expressed her great dislike to the crows in her murder and they echoed her dislike, making a horrific racket. It was then that she decided she simply must do something because it just wasn't right to allow a fellow avian to fend for himself, even if there were two other women trying to help him. The only proper help he could hope to get was the help of a raven. Thinking fast she promised her murder that if only they could go and attack those horrible mean boys she would give them all the food they could ever desire upon their return and, because the crows lived at the Mansion and because they knew who Raven was and that she kept her promises to them, they obeyed.

In an instant all dozen crows lifted from the tree simultaneously, heading for the scene of the attack. They began pecking and scratching at the mean culprits, diving and dodging this way and that, trying to do damage while staying just out of range of any retaliatory damage. None touched the boy with the wings although a few dove once or twice at the two women. They were, after all, only crows and only had the minds of crows. Don't attack the feathered one they understood but they were a little bit more fuzzy on only attack the boys and leave the girls alone. Still, they obeyed remarkably well and the majority of their offense was aimed at the correct offenders.

Her murder successfully sicked upon her enemies, Raven quieted and then jumped from her treetop perch back onto the ground. She sent a silent summons to Blackwing, though he was roaming farther than usual and wouldn't be back for a couple of minutes. Her attention was grabbed immediately at the winged boy's eagle screech, a rather impressive sound. Sure raptors weren't in the same category as regal ravens, but at least they were above the status of crows. In fact, they really weren't that far below ravens, all things considered, probably nestled right between ravens and humans in order of how much respect they deserved. Sure they weren't brilliant scavengers able to take advantage of any given situation, but their hunting skills deserved a respect all their own and Blackwing had more than once taken advantage of the hunting prowess of an eagle, stealing the lunch it had so painstakingly killed for itself. Thus the winged eagle boy was worth saving from the mean humans.

Not being much of a combatant herself, Raven was content merely to watch for now, to see what the eagle boy was actually worth in a fight. Ravens didn't fight unless absolutely necessary and it simply wasn't necessary at that moment. Besides, she had done her part by sending the crows in for support, what more could be expected of her?

The boy acted like he was fine and even laughed a little, but Henrietta figured his ego was bruised. She knew what it was like to get picked on. He actually seemed to not want help, but the girl had always hoped that a person would walk over and save her from the bullying. Unfortunately, everyone would glance her way and just walk on by. Of course, the people who had given her a hard time were usually the people she claimed were her friends. Some friends they were.

The kids that had hurt the winged-boy were trying to get all the females involved to leave them so they could go back to picking him. Henri felt her hand clench into a fist. The nerve of some kids. Did they really think they’d just leave them to continue their cruel game? “Wow, you’re a stupid bunch of brats, aren’t you?” The words were out of her mouth before she had much time to consider the consequences. After a moment, a hand came to her lips. Hopefully, the bullies were against hurting girls.

Henrietta was blown backwards when the boy’s wings came out. The brunette fell onto her butt and let out a “uff”. Wind whipped her hair around for a moment before she was able to see that the boy with wings had attacked the leader of the bullies. Her eyes widened as his yell turned into an angry screech, similar to that of an eagle. Her hands went to her ears instantly. The noise felt like it could’ve shattered her inner ear. It was a spectacular, but painful sound.

After a few seconds, another loud noise joined the cacophony of sounds. There were caws coming from the nearby tree once more. The girl looked in time to see a large group of ravens or crows swooping down from where they had perched moments before. Their attack was aimed towards her, the other woman, and the mean kids. Not many came for her, personally, but it was enough to make her flinch. She glanced down at her arm and noticed scratch marks or peck marks or something. Whatever it was, it kind of hurt.

Slamming on the ground Carrick was for the most part oblivious to everyone around him at this point all he was focused on was returning the beating Scott had been giving him moments before. Sure his hands couldn’t turn metallic but he figured if he hit him hard enough it might feel like they were. Lifting his right hand up and forming a fist Carrick swung down hitting Scott in the cheek with a loud thud. Sure it wasn’t as loud as he liked it to be but it felt good.

The sound of the next few punches fell quite compared to whatever it was going on around him. Looking at the girls that tried to help him moments before they were no being attacked by birds, black birds. ”Crows!” Carrick said surprised and forgetting he was currently in a fight. Did he somehow summon them to help him with his screech a few moments before? If he did they weren’t exactly helping him by protecting him, they were attacking the wrong people.

Another second passed and he turned to see Scott’s friends trying to fend off the birds with massive feats of stupidness. One was throwing kicks and the other was curling up in a little ball. Carrick smirked, sure he felt bad for the girls that tried to help him but now they weren’t stopping him from laying the hurt!

Instantly his attention shifted when Scott under him moved, looking back down with a frown Carrick was ready to throw another punch but before he could throw it, he found himself on his back looking up at Scott who had a fat lip and a swollen cheek. ”Amadan!” Carrick cursed at Scott who started to beat Carrick again.

By the second punch however Carrick started to notice a few of the birds that were swarming them moments before move in to attack Scott clawing and pecking at him. With a satisfied grin Carrick reached up and threw a punch to Scott’s jaw when he wasn’t looking.

The arrival of a flock of black birds was highly unexpected. One snatched at her with shiny black claws, raking red streaks onto her arm and across the back of her hand as she swung it up to protect her face. A second whirlwind of angry feathers joined the first in dive-bombing her, but as far as she could tell, the main numbers were attacking the bullies.

“Hey back off, them not me!”

A strong wing-tip slapped her in the face and she felt her eyes begin to water. Ducking under the flap-attack she was eerily reminded of a nursery-rhyme. Four and twenty black-birds, baked in a pie… she couldn’t recall the rest of the song, except that someone lost their nose. In a second of respite she glimpsed Carrick giving some back to the head bully, and silently she approved. Violence sucked, but when it was happening it was always nicer when the good guys were winning.

Flapping her unscraped arm at the birds, the white c-shaped scar from the Christmas-eve fight with Cthulhu pale against her skin, she managed to dissuade the feathered menace long enough to sweep her eyes around, searching for the sender of these angry minions. For a second a shape caught her eye, but her attention was drawn once more to the fight by Carrick’s unfamiliar word. The birds seemed to take the hint and turned their claws and beaks against the bully straddling the winged boy.

((OOC: Sorry it took me so long to reply, school got hectic the last couple of weeks.))