Aedus set there in the Subway, He had been ready to go hit the next club when he realized the bruise he was sporting would probably mark him as a trouble maker for the rest of the night, and He didn’t want the hassle with trying to talk his way in. so he took his bruise to the subway, half inviting someone to mess with him, He could really let loose on some would be mugger and not have to hold back like he did to that chauvinistic punk. He wore a white tank top and slacks, it was too cold for this but he made the decisions he made tonight… and it was kind of fun.

It was dark damp and the wet smell of dirt and grim permeated the air, it was a good setting for a bad mood.It was only worth getting punched in the head if you went home with the girl, or at least got some food afterward.

No one even so much as talked to him on the way to the subway station or as he waited. Maybe it was the set of his Jaw, his brow, maybe it was the fact that he looked like he was ready to set someone strait. He entered the relatively empty subway car and set himself down on the cold plastic seat of the subway car.

He glanced around at the pair of guys down at one end of the car and then at a forth in the opposite end. Ah the socialites… he wondered momentarily if this was a bad Idea. Aedus set his eyes to the floor and realized that they might be thinking the same thing about him. He did look somewhat down on his luck.

It had been a busy night for Drew. He leaned back in his seat with his hood up and adjusted to keep his face hidden. There were a couple of bruises scattered over his face and torso but nothing that wouldn't heal. Most of the people that he took care of really weren't all that good in a fight. The sort of people that talked a big game but couldn't back it up. A few of them had got in some good hits, hence the bruises, but over all Drew felt that he'd done very well tonight. The humans he'd met that had been even remotely disapproving of mutants had been punished and a couple of mutants had been spared some adversity.

Now he was headed to another part of the city. Just one last sweep before he went back home to rest. If he spent too much time in one area eventually the police got called. The very last thing Drew needed or wanted was to face down a cop. Even if a good portion of them were humans they were public servants that did as much good for mutants as they did humans. Most of the time anyway. As such Drew had no wish to tangle with them. Hence the moving from area to area. It kept him safer from the police.

There were only about three other people in the car at the moment. But that was a function of the time since it was late now. That didn't bother him. The fewer people around to see him the better. One hand snaked up and pulled the hood of the grey wool coat down just a bit further. A little extra care couldn't hurt at all.

Aedus leaned back and watched the pair of thugs down at the one end chatting with each other in hushed tones. The guy at the other end covered his face even further. Crap. did he get in a car that was just waiting for a mark. None of them looked like they were all that law bidding,judging by the need to wear bandanas or pull their hoods up.

"Hey punk. You gonna give me your cash and walk away." The fellows walked forward toward him.

Aedus glanced to the other end and decided against running, the third would just join in. screw it.
He looked up at the man.

" **** you!" Blunt but effective.

The guy behind him laughed. " you messed up now, show him Rust."

The large man grabbed one of the poles that you held on to in the middle of the of the subway and seemed to concentrate. a small line of rust ran down the side pole and then formed two rings at the ends of the pole about six feet apart and cut the pole from the center.

Aedus was in a belligerent mood and laughed. "' Thats the best you got? you can acquire a pipe." He looked behind him, you got anything better," cause I'm still liking my odds." He drew his legs back readying himself for his first move.

Of course they just had to go and screw up a nice peaceful ride. The idiotic human, for that was what Drew assumed him to be considering he didn't demonstrate an ability after being threaten, just had to get on his car. And the mutant on the car would have to be a mugger. A frown tugged at his face. Drew hated it when he had to face mutant criminals. They had so much potential and they wasted it on petty crime. As much as it pained him to do so he'd have to stop them. And the evening had been going so well too.

But he didn't have to step in just yet.

No, Drew could sit there and wait for the human to get beat up a little before he moved in to help . In the meantime he could watch the show and get a feel for how everyone involved fought. That would do well enough for a battle plan. At least neither of them had weapons. Being menaced by guns got old quick. Even faster if one had seen to a bit of protection against said weapons. He turned his body toward the fight. If he needed to move to get involved then he wanted to be ready to do so.

Drew's only question now was whether the other mugger was a mutant as well. One had showed off an ability. The other had not. It would be easier to manage the fight if he knew whether the other guy had an ability and whether or not it was better suited to a fight. Rust? Not so intimidating or useful. Though he was a human Drew agreed with the victim in regards to that.

The other guy grinned. “Yeah, you ready?” he raised his hand to show him nothing was in it and looked away, Aedus tensed not sure what was about to happen, Rust and the other guy closed their eye’s and Aedus realized it just in time, His eyes slammed shut and an overwhelming light was pointed toward him.
Aedus rolled out of the seat away from them, He could probably handle the guy with the pip, He couldn’t do it blind. He sought cover under the seat. It blocked the light out but dots and spots floated before his eyes.

“Ok, Light, enough.” Rust growled.
Wow, these guys were creative.

But when the pair opened their eyes he wasn’t there and lucky for him it did the same thing to them too. Aedus couldn’t stay there forever, but he was kind of stuck. But it was better now than never. He rolled out from under the seat much to the chump mutants’ surprises. He managed to get his feet under him as the pole was swinging toward him; on the upside it seemed unwieldy because it was large. On the down side if he got hit, it was going to suck.

Aedus flopped back ward across the aisle. The third guy was just watching, he was either in on it or he was playing the classic better him than me card. Fricking New York. He hopped backwards away from the pole swinger, but the pair didn’t work well with each other either, at least not in tandem.

Urgh, damn irresponsible mutant muggers! Drew had only managed to get his eyes half shut before the too obviously named Light had flared up. Now he was going to have to get involved sooner than he'd wanted to. The last thing Drew was going to allow was for some mutant punk to flash blind him more than once. It was a self serving motive but it got him up on his feet. The guy they were mugging managed to throw himself out of the way of the improvised weapon. Another tug on his hood ensured it was in place before he spoke.

"Rust and Light? You boys sure are creative about yer names."

Drew pulled himself into a fighting stance: hands up and feet evenly spaced with the weight only slightly forward of center. The drawl that he didn't use often was serving as tonight's vocal disguise as he strode forward a step or two to stand even with the other guy.

"Now I'm gonna ask you boys nicely once. Why don't ya go sit down and leave him be?"

Guys like these wouldn't take the hint of course. They never did. But since they were mutants Drew felt obliged to try. It was only their stupidity and thug-like actions that were drawing him into the fight after all. Beyond that Drew had no quarrel with them.

Oh thank goodness. The other guy wasn’t with them and he seemed cocky. Probably, another mutant. Or someone that thought they could take the world’s most pathetic mutant duo. A couple of bullets would straiten these guys out quick. Aedus raised up a little bit, this guy wouldn’t be fighting alone, two on two wouldn’t be bad.

Aedus Laughed. Tetanus and Flare would be a little bit better, They also needed to buy dark sunglasses to pull this off better, He wasn’t going to help make their next time more successful though.

He doubted they were going to listen, would he let them if they did? He could take these guys. He wanted to, He wanted to take their money in fact…He wanted to bash their faces in with a pipe. He was in a worse mood tonight, then he had realized.

He stood and readied himself to take on whichever one the southern hood didn’t.

Well it seemed the human wasn't entirely useless. He could at least take a hit and get back up. That boded better for them in the fight. Drew could take on both guys at once if he had to. Martin, Sam, and Drew's own nightly activities had seen to that. But it was better to have someone at your back, even if they were a human. The human's laugh served to reinforce Drew's assumption that he would be standing with Drew against the two muggers. As expected, the two didn't give up. Really Drew had never imagined they would. But things got tricky if you didn't give them the chance. Cops got all touchy about it. Then again they didn't like most of his activities these days anyway. It would have been a problem if he weren't half decent at running.

Regarding the situation at hand though Drew didn't think running would cut it. Or that the fellow he would likely end up fighting beside would run anyway. Frankly Drew had long ago become fed up with running so sticking around for a fight was perfectly fine by him. The muggers laughed at Drew's attempt to let them out of the beating they were about to receive and earned a shrug for it.

"Suit yerselves. I'll not be held responsible for the whoopin' you two are about to receive."

The car of the hurtling contraption of metal burst into action then. Fists were thrown, both by the two punks and Drew. He paid little attention to his partner in battle at this point. Only enough to ensure himself that he didn't need to bail the human out.

Aedus watched as the other man stood up and decided to handle His problem, He would have taken the two men on if he had know that a third wouldn’t have been joining their side. But now that the odds were even, it was going to be lights out for flare. Aedus Rushed the man and closed his eyes just as he hit the man in the chest with a full tackle, the thinner of the thugs, had the air knocked out of I’m as he hit the subway floor, Aedus rose up and almost felt bad about wailing on him when he was out of breath, almost.

Aedus punched the man enough so that his fists were starting to hurt, he was going after the man’s ribs, with fury he was dishing out, he didn’t want to hit his head, he wanted to hurt, him, he didn’t want to kill him though.

It was almost too easy.

Flare threw arm across his head to protect it, and then opened his hand with a flash of light Aedus was blind and seeing stars. He expected to start feeling a rain of fists from below, but his wraith took the fight out of flare it seemed. So Aedus simply tried to hold the mutant down, hopefully Rust was getting his butt handed to him too or he wouldn’t see a pipe coming his way.

Unwieldy or not that pipe was going to be a bit of a problem. It was heavy enough to pack a decent wallop if Drew got hit with it. Thankfully the small space meant that Ole Rusty there couldn't maneuver the thing very well. Drew was able to keep out of it's path most of the time. In fact Drew managed to land a couple of solid punches before the pipe in question smacked into his midsection. The breath left Drew's body in one forced rush as his body bent in half from the blow. It was painful straightening up but Drew did so without complaint or wince even as Rusty grinned at him. No point in give him the satisfaction of knowing it had hurt. Especially when Drew was confident he could beat the fool into submission despite what didn't even count as a scratch to him. You might as well have just stubbed his toe.

That made the kick that Drew lashed out with something of a surprise. It caused old Rusty to stumble backwards just as Lightbrite decided to put on a light show. Drew barely managed to turn his head and shield his gaze in time. Rusty wasn't quite as lucky. He'd blocked some of the flash of light but not enough to prevent further disorientation. It wasn't enough to keep him of kilter though. By the time Drew closed in again Rusty was brandishing the pipe at him again. Another quick check on his team mate showed no issues over there so Drew brought his attention back to his own battle.

Aedus stopped punching when he realized that sparky was no longer bothering to fight back. He stood up and rubbed at his eyes. He was getting his vision back and as he stood there in a bit of a daze he realized that Rust was raring back for another swing , the pipe hit him square in the forehead, It wasn’t hard enough to knock him out as he was merely winding up for the swing. But it didn’t help his already dizzy mind. He stumbled back and sat his butt down on one of the benches. He put a hand to his head and then settled a foot over one of flashbulbs hands, if he came to before the hooded guy settled pipey. Well then he didn’t want any surprise blinding. Once the room stopped spinning he would help with Rust, if the guy didn’t finish up before he needed it.It was going to leave a lump, a big one he figured, he would have to baby it if he was going to get it to go away before his interview.

The pipe didn't lunge at him though. No, Rusty directed it at the other guy who had at some point defeated ole Lightbrite. And the pipe left a nasty little present for the guy. Drew frowned and grabbed the hunk of metal before Rusty could withdraw it from the strike. His free hand came down hard on one of the hands holding it and then the other. That loosened Rusty's grip enough for Drew to yank the pipe out of his grasp and discard it behind him where Rusty wouldn't be able to use it against either of them.

"Well lookie there. Guess you'll ta fight without yer toy now, Rusty."

That earned Drew a couple of quick swears from the other man. Drew smirked.

"Such language. Didn't yer momma teach ya better? Though considerin' the circumstances I'd guess not."

It was cocky of him to banter like this when Rusty was still up and about but Drew was feeling pretty confident despite the knocks he'd taken. With his team mate done but out Drew figured it was just about time wrap this little shindig up. So he closed in and the fight between him and Rusty became a battle of fists. Drew took a couple of hard knocks. He'd have a black eye before he got back to the mansion. Hiding that would be a treat. But Rusty was worse off when they broke apart and that was all that mattered.

Aedus watched the back and forth of the two remaining men, the pipe was removed from play and the tables turned severely in favor of the hood. He appreciated the time he took to talk smack, if nothing else it was good for a breather. The pair skirmished, Rusty was all wild swing where the guy helping him out was all well placed blows. that wasn't to say Rusty didn't land a solid shot or two, it was just that it seemed that they weren't nearly as effective. the hood would easily be able to say you should see the other guy.

The subway came to a stop and the doors opened, a man waiting for the subway decided on a different car in a hurry. Rusty hurried over to flashbulb and hauled him on his shoulder and carried him toward a bench off of the subway. Aedus stood up and looked to the other pugilist.

"Thanks for the help that would have been pretty rough to handle alone." Aedus offered his hand to shake, whether or not the man would take it, he couldn't really tell.

There was a smirk decorating his face at the expression Rusty wore as the train slowed into the station. The second the train was stopped and the doors open Rusty saw fit to drag Lightbrite off the train and flee instead of continuing the fight. Drew laughed, really more of a low chuckle. A few bruises were an excellent price for teaching guys like that a lesson. Of course that meant he was stuck with a grateful human but he could deal with that.

Speaking of, the human in question stood up and thanked him soon after the departure of the dim witted duo. Drew eyed the offered hand for a moment before grasping it and shaking it.

"I despise thugs like that. A little bit of power and they seem to think they can do whatever they want."

Which was something that mutants and humans had in common. Part of their shared nature Drew guessed. They were as much like as they were different after all. Not something Drew particularly liked acknowledging about humans and mutants but oh well.

Aedus was just about to take his hand back when the other guy finally shook it. “Yeah, I can’t stand the amount of that garbage that goes on in the city, I’m glad they were after me and not someone easily taken. I’m also glad that they aren’t smart enough to make their abilities work together…they could at least buy themselves some sunglasses.”

He plopped down on a seat and rubbed his head, “You took the guy with the pipe, but I still got introduced to the thing. I would have stepped in to help with him, but it looked like you had it under control. I’m Aedus By the way.”

He would be taking a longer walk home since he missed that last exit, it just wouldn’t have been smart to follow them off of the train, not when they could have followed him home.