Kaitlyn should have seen it coming. But her mind was elsewhere. She had a chance to end this fight before it began. To find a peaceful resolution. Everyone might be able to go home without trying to kill each other, for once. The Amazons would have good food, none of the farmers or Town protectors would be dead, and everybody would be happy.

"Kaitlyn, we need to talk."

The second she saw Mars hop into the void, she should have known that this was about to happen.

"Wha-?"

She started to turn around, but enormous red arms reached out and embraced her.

"Wait!" she cried, but she knew it wasn't any use. The portal between the void and the real world closed shut, leaving her trapped within the former. A flurry of different emotions welled up in her chest. After a few moments of stunned silence, she hugged Mars tight, barely managing to hold back a sob.

"I'm sorry..."

The man she was currently hugging had been nicer to her than anyone else she'd ever met. When they'd met, she was a street urchin, having just run away from home, coming to terms with a mutation that terrified her and threatened everyone around her. This man took her in and treated her like his own daughter. He helped her realize that she could actually be somebody.

Several seconds ago, she was threatening to kill him.

"You know I wasn't really gonna do that, right?"

Things happened quickly.

Allison snarled as Kaitlyn disappeared, and a moment later snarled again as the wave swept Lady Muse away. She tried reaching for her as she went past, but missed, and then immediately had to duck an incoming shovel.

Really? The gargoyle was still attempting to kill people with farming implements? Couldn’t the girl at least be a bit less crude?

The gargoyle was gone, and instead the Abyssi were there. Allison lifted four spots of ink out of her arms--no reason to use the easier fingerprint ones yet--and sent them flying toward the two nearest giant red forms. She took a step away from Aura; still, hopefully, close enough to get help if she needed it, but not so close that they’d necessarily get in each other’s way.

Allison pulled the ink back to her, keeping it in four separate tiny orbs, and held them floating around the sides of her face. Her hand brushed over the hilt of her talon blades again, making sure they were secure, before holding one hand up, fingers curled into claws. The claws were far from lethal, certainly, but they were more than capable of being painful. The talon blades could wait until she lost the claws.

Ever since Rhythm had come into Syn’s life there had been a spark within the dark woman that grew brighter the more she got to know the woman she now calls her wife. It was a spark that Syn had only felt a couple times in the past, but as soon as she had begun to feel its effects the spark vanished along with the one who had caused it to flicker into existence. Each time the spark was lost deep down Syn longed to feel it again as it felt as if a hole had been created within her. That hole was covered by Syn’s will power in order to hide such a weakness. She wouldn’t allow herself to show any emotion regarding her loneliness whilst among her peers or her brother.

That loneliness was now filled by the love of her wife. It was a warm feeling much like the one they shared when they were close to one another. The spark had become a full on fire that burned within Syn and she would do anything to keep the flames roaring. Hearing those wonderful words from Rhythm always made Syn smile. It was a side effect as the flame burning within her being rose in response. Looking into her beloved wife’s eyes Syn caressed her cheek softly. “I love you too my sweet.” Cuddling back against Rhythm’s body Syn placed her arms over her wife’s and closed her eyes as a nose rubbed the back of her neck. Sleep came quickly and sweetly.

Eruption smiled inwardly or would have, could he physically smile in the void, with no physical plane, he had to admit this was the weirdest thing he had ever experienced. It was as if he was tagging along in someone else's head, in fact that was exactly what he was doing. Hoping into the void was just that, becoming a mind and only a mind. the clones existed like this for years, personally he thought that was why they were so different in attitude from each other, how could they not become exaggerations? if they didn't they would have had no individuality at all. as he listened to the girls confession of not meaning a bit of what she was doing. He kept his silence and would do so until Abyss would announce where he was about to set him up, He secretly hoped that he would make the mistake of plopping him down near Isabel, She could use some singeing.

But he was likely going to get tossed out into the fray as a surprise against someone who needed it. from what he could tell. The law had it well in hand.

Well, negotiations certainly broke down fast. Isabel's head spun in Kaitlyn's direction as a sort of black hole opened up near her and a pair of burly red arms wrapped around her small form and dragged her out of sight. The distraction nearly caused her to move a little too late as the giant wave came crashing toward Muse and swept the young woman out of the battle. She'd just barely managed to skitter out of the way before being knocked aside.

It would be more difficult to avoid the several red forms that had suddenly begun barreling toward their dwindling numbers. She really didn't want to fight the Abyss brothers. Not only were they pretty much solid muscle and a serious force to be reckoned with, but they had been her friends for so very long before New York had gotten blown up. It just seemed wrong to tussle with them.

And so she would avoid it for as long as possible. The decorative bits of bone resting along her upper body disappeared back into her skin, affording her some more freedom of movement and a greater range of sight. Besides, her mode of decoration wasn't likely to intimidate anyone in the current lineup. It was more for people like the farmers.

She planned on making a wide arch and hopefully avoiding the Red line that was rapidly approaching. If that didn't work, she could only hope she's be able to squirm her way between two of the red bodies or launch herself over one. They weren't her target for today. She was much more interested in the person that seemed to be leading the charge.

She was after the bald old man at the back of the line.

The ground beneath his feet lifted him, then pushed and carried him forward, with in his range all sorts of tangles popped out of the ground that would be apt to snagging feet even if he couldn’t see the feet he wished to tangle. He caught a momentary huff of breath and hurried foot falls but in moments those were gone as well. She must have been terrified if she was pulling out all the stops. Still the only clue he had was the odd movement of dirt on her skin, she was by no means covered head to toe, so the odd side effect of seeing dirt that was supposed to be invisible was a challenging to follow. But it was enough.

If he could get her within ten feet, that would be the game. He wondered how many times he would bite her, before her tricks would fade and he could watch her suffer. He followed her down the left alleyway and lost her for a moment until the form ran left. He surged forward once more, she’d have to get tired sometime soon.


((Katrina's and Zelek's chase continues in Rare stakes))

((Sveta and Jorge continue to fight here))

Cross fire had started, it wasn't guns, but something of a higher power. Trying to avoid most of what the enemy threw at them, Markus strayed his path somewhat but regained it again only to see something quicker heading for him. It was one of the more "forward" Amazons. Surprised at the counter to their blitz, Markus aimed his revolver for the woman's chest and fired twice while with the other hand he drew his combat knife and readied it to a frontal position. Closing the gap between them Markus hoped that he still remembered what to do in a close quarters combat situation, his mind still a clutter from the chaos that everything had drawn into.

((sorry about the delay, I had to figure out my motives.))

Mars laughed gently at the girls immediate apology and the warmth of her thoughts being sent to him.

“ We figured we would free you of the responsibility of blowing us up.” Mars then huffed at her next statement. “ I should think not! I love you and I understand what you are doing.” He then remembered the farmers. “You are doing what you have to to survive. But for that we are going to have to punish you.”

The void opened and though there was no opening to see it was like seeing something move out of the corner of your eye, except with your mind. You had to look at it. “Come on dear lets go talk privately.’

Mars, Kaitlyn and three farmers were deposited somewhere not too far off from the bone fortress.

Mars looked to the farmers. “We aren’t a danger to the farm anymore from here, so I am guessing you might want to stop the trouble closer to home?
The panicked farmers ran in the direction of their farm, still intent on keeping their command from Syn.

Mars looked to Kaitlyn. “as I was saying.” He hugged her. “I love you and am very Proud of you.do what you must dear one.”
---mean whilke back at the farm-----

Venus smacked headlong into the whip and tumbled to a roll at Kitra’s feet. He looked up at the woman, he hadn’t seen in a few years. The apocalypse looked good on these girls; he had no trouble understanding why they had to band together to chase the boys away. He grinned at her from the ground. “ You’ve got it all wrong, we could play nice, and you could keep the whip.” He waggled his eyebrows at her not expecting anything less than a potential slap to the face or crack of the whip. His goal wasn’t to hurt her, if they hadn’t realized he and his brothers were pulling punches, they had forgotten what the red Seven were capable of.

Venus rolled to his feet. “ where were we? Oh, right. Playing nice. What did you have in mind?” He wasn’t past making out on a battle field. He closed in on Kitra. “You won’t find a more interesting playmate.” His eyes seemed to back the promise on his lips.

Mercury stopped the charge and planted his feet eyeballing Isabel and Markus. He didn’t care what else was going on. He saw what Isabel could do in a fight and she had only gotten stronger since. He liked the old man, and taking the stance of the law was a bad idea when facing Isabel…but at the same time Markus had a gun aimed at Isabel’s chest…he didn’t like this game anymore, they were supposed to throw the woman in the void and get a chance to talk… He didn’t want her shot and didn’t want him impaled…

Mercury let out a low growl at them both, but likely wouldn’t be noticed by either.

Pluto crashed into Allison as she readied herself…why the hell hadn’t she dodged.It wasn’t like she wasn’t faster than him. His face lit up in pain as he lifter her to toss her into the void. Ink splashed onto his face, Abyss wasn’t opening the void quick enough, watching the battle unfold before him.

Damn it he wasn’t about to break Aura’s bride but he had to keep up the act. He bared his teeth and then roared at her at a deafening volume. He slammed his tail into the ground releasing a thunderclap like sound into the battle field.

Jupiter swiped his fist at the ink that Alison had flung at him and leaped toward Aura with a laugh. Blunted pink blades as usual he thought. It’d be a bad day if she ever went sharp on him and sliced him in two. He rared back and threw a hearty punch at his adorable nieces face. Screaming the worst insult he could think of. She was going into the void if he had anything to say about it, but she could be counted on for a work out.

Saturn folded his arms and glanced at Gina, darn he had no one to fight…”I’m going to check the house.’ He announced as if they were on a trip for groceries and he remembered they needed milk. It beat watching this farce of a battle.

Abyss stood back focusing on what exactly Venus was doing…he was hitting on Kitra. Saturn was walking across the field with out the slightest interest…Markus was busy, but surely Gina would notice they weren’t into it by now. He was glad he had Aedus in the void and Jorge had gone down stream. Zelek was off who knows where. He belatedly opened a void for Pluto. To serve up Allison like a volleyball.

So the old man had brought a gun. Cute. Most people weren't too keen to waste ammunition nowadays, and while some of the other Amazons would have had trouble dealing with the rounds, Isabel had never really had an issue with them. They hurt, yes, and if they were powerful enough they might be able to blow a chunk out of her defenses, but she highly doubted the thing in the geezer's hand was anything of the sort. Just another handgun that would cut shallowly into her skin when fired and leave the bullets striking uselessly at her hidden defenses. A few holes in her skin were nothing. A few in his, however, could prove deadly.

Two rounds were fired with an impressively steady hand considering who the old timer had picked up as a sparring partner. Whether or not those were his only rounds was left to be seen, but judging by the knife he pulled out, it didn't look as if he would be using the firearm again anytime soon. What a stupid man.

The bullets struck their target, but did very little to slow Isabel down. One had hit the topmost band of bone wrapping horizontally across her chest, while the other bit into the skin just below one of her collarbones. It stung like a bastard, but she expertly picked the hot metal from her skin with the aid of a few short, toothed spikes of bone poking out of the tips of her forefinger and thumb. She left it to bleed freely, anticipating that the blood would slowly clot aided by all the dust the fight was kicking up and serve as a natural sort of bandage until she got back to the Fortress.

The knife the man was holding was a joke, no matter how large it might be. A knife was probably one of the worst things to bring to a mutant fight, right next to bare fists. She was an entire armory all by herself, and he thought he could stop her with some little butter knife? She had to laugh as she closed the distance between him and herself.

"Old man,you have no idea who you're messing with," she spat, grinning all the while as she dropped onto her own feet before engaging him. That left her six extra appendages free to cause damage. And she planned to use them.

The spine over he left shoulder made a jab at his face while her hips twisted and the one resting by her right thigh made a sweep for his knees. Another by her ribs went limp and pliable as it struck. She wanted to get at least one wrapped around his wrist to prevent him from making any good use of that knife. The other three would simply poke and jab at any opening they could find. She wasn't going to kill him right away. This was a game she was sure to win and she wanted to make sure she had some fun before she did.

Maxine did not like the sound of that second bark. She did not like it at all.

Chair hit kid, paper mauled kid, kid went down and that rifle of his? Dropped. Damn right it was, and good for him, too. Wouldn't want this to get serious.

His little dog—the annoying one, the one that had probably gone and tattled on them in town—just yapped at the scene, clearly upset but unable to pick a target. Which told her something: whatever else his dogs were, they weren't something he directly controlled, and they weren't any smarter than normal dogs. Without him to guide it, the poor little pooch didn't know who the real threat was, here.

Maxine took nice non-threatening steps away from the puppy's curled up master, and discretely picked the rifle up off the floor. Checked to see if it was loaded and ready, snapped it back shut, and pointed it towards the door to the house. She really didn't like the sound of that barking. She liked even less the look of the dog standing in the door of the house. The body matched the bark, and she had little doubt that the bite would, too. Would bullets even work on the thing? It was obviously some kind of mutant dog—she just didn't know what kind. Some kind of demonic summon that vanished in smoke if it was hit? Something like her dogs, that was never alive to begin with, and so didn't give a crap about bullets?

...If he died, did his dogs die too?

Her gaze flicked towards him, but she didn't have time to switch the sights on the barrel before—

>> "ASTOR! ATTACK!"

Before that big hulking red-eyed monster lunged forward; her finger started squeezing down on the trigger as it attacked... her paper.

Haaaaaaa.

Nope. Whatever these pooches were, they definitely weren't all that smart without Timmy here to hold their leashes. Which gave her another idea.

With a mental flick of her own—really, spoken commands were for kids—she ordered her snarling pooch to take things inside. The black dog followed, maybe thinking it had the paper dog on the retreat. Before its master could order it otherwise, Maxine pulled the door shut, and jammed the rocker under the handle.

That complete, Maxine took a step back from the kid—far enough to be out of easy reach, should he try anything else stupid—and let the rifle barrel sink down to aim at his chest. It was a bigger target than that pretty blonde head of his. Dead was dead, and a girl didn't need to be a very good marksman, from this distance.

"Well," she said, as the fight ragged on behind closed doors. "I'd say it's round two for our little negotiations, wouldn't you? Now what was that about my 'finely formed posterior'?"

Kitra rolled her eyes, of course she would get the flirt. A slap in the face would not do Venus justice at all. And of course she had to keep up the pretense of attempting to fight him. Well she had never really tested how much she could actually pick up with her paper. She grinned devilishly at Venus who had been steadily moving closer.

Kitra cracked her whip and let the paper loose. All of her paper swirled about Venus and settled around his midsection in a giant-paper made hand. It had a little tail that wrapped around Kitra's wrist however. Using the two small sheets of paper underneath her feet she zoomed forward attempting to drag Venus with her.

As she flitted past him she whispered, "Play along would you please."
Providing Venus did play along Kitra's aim was to pull him out of direct line of sight to hopefully chat. And probably have to get a few bruises to make things believable to the girls.

One moment, Miles was surrounded by a whirlwind of paper slicing and cutting at him as he tried to cover his face and body as best he could and the next, the sheets were gone, it's four legged shape chased into the house by Astor, who was adamantly trying to rip it to pieces and defend his master.

Yes! You wonderful, beautiful dog!

The young man took his arms off his face to get a better view at the scene when a large plank of wood obscured it all as the door closed shut, leaving both dogs inside the house. She even blocked the door with the rocking chair, making any attempts to escape from the house impossible for Astor, since Miles himself had blocked and covered the windows with furniture from the inside.

No! You stupid, moronic dog! You fell into a trap!

The young man was still on the floor, trying to help himself up with his aching arms as he started to really feel the sting from all the cuts he'd gotten. None were too severe but they all hurt anyway. Tinaker stopped barking while Astor was still pointlessly chasing paper inside the house when he heard her voice.

She was pointing his own rifle at him. Good lord, how stupid had he been? His dogs were wonderful weapons because they always obeyed him but a rifle only obeys whoever is holding it and he had reliquished that power away. Negotiations? Those were good when you had something to bargain and what did he have? He was still in the floor so there was no way for him to get out of her sights quick enough and there was zero chance his second dog could attack her fast enough before she fired a shot. Add to that, her dog could easily escape the house by sliding out from under the door and all the cards were stacked against him.

He was done for.

Miles swallowed and raised both hands awkwardly, signaling his surrender as his brain raced trying to come up with something that could save his life. An idea did come up and he hoped she'd see reason in it.

"That's a slow firing rifle" he said, knowing his weapon was not automatic and getting that second shot out would take precious fractions of a second. "If you shoot me, my dog will immediately attack and you'll give my position, and yours, away to the rest of the townies since they know what my rifle sounds like. Not even you would be able to handle their numbers, specially if they're angry from seeing me dead" he added, bargaining his life on a wild, but sort of logical guess.

"Go. Take the rifle..." he even dared to suggest and held his tongue from adding 'and your posterior' to his sentence. "...and leave. You've nothing to gain from shooting at me. Take your berries, your rifle and go."

"Let's see if I've got this straight," the redhead said down the length of the gun. "When you're in control, you get the loot and the girl. When I'm in control, I get to take my berries, my rifle, and 'go'? Why Sir, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were being sexist."

Was she toying with the kid? Oh hells yes. But really, what else was there to do?

He'd as good as admitted that the first shot would kill him; that ruled out any mutational cockamimi she had to worry about. Oh, boohoo, his dog would attack her? Unless he'd died before, she'd say that was fifty/fifty—she was a controller mutant herself, and she couldn't say for sure whether her animations would keep going on the day someone finally offed her. Plus, with the big one in the house, the little one didn't look so bad. And holdup: the only reason she had to fear it was because she wouldn't be able to reload fast enough? So it could die from damage. Her eyes flicked to it briefly, then back to the kid.

Yeah. Yeah, a tin of coffee and a pair of boots said she could club his little dog to death before it could do any serious damage. Wouldn't be the first time. And, worst come to worst, she could still order her own dog back out here in a matter of seconds. Unless the townsies had acquired a speedster she didn't know about, that meant her escape was good to go, too. Even if her lovely ladies were doing such a poor job of entertaining that the town boys felt free to come over and dance.

Was she toying with the kid? Oh hells yes. But really, what else was there to do? She needed time to decide whether she would kill him or not.

"Let me be honest with you Mister Haxton, Miles Haxton," the Amazon said, "you're young, stupid, and a mutational pushover—that means I don't have to kill you. But I'd like a better reason than that. After all, young will change, stupid might, and pushover definitely will, if you want to live. I can't leave trash lying around that my girls might trip over later. So you tell me, and make it good: why shouldn't I kill you?"

And trust her: she didn't care about his friends, or his little dog, either. Hopefully her steady green eyes sighting down the barrel's length were making that clear enough. Be a shame if he wasted his last chance on threatening her again.

And with the first insult spoken between the opponents the fighting broke out. Watching this Woman attack was like watching a flower of brutality and unspoken rage blossom fourth. Markus's fear was inferior to his need to survive, he felt that the world of others weighed on his shoulders, and not in the egotistical way. Only thoughts of protecting the Town and those who resided within it's walls filled the halls of his mind. Keep a cool head, go low, and when she expects the natural or the common, throw more curve balls than Fred Goldsmith. This thought was first to hit home when he saw the Woman heading for him, when she lashed out her ability Markus quickly bent to avoid the one heading to his head. Markus jolted back but knew this swift barrage was going to wash over him like a Tsunami and cripple him if he didn't think on his feet a bit quicker.

Markus quickly dropped to the ground with his gun and knife in tow, his torso falling to the ground forward as he rolled quickly to the right under the swipes and other incoming jabs. This was going to be a narrow escape, but if it meant he could live just a bit longer he was up for it. Rebounding from his dodge he quickly pushed himself off the ground further away from the Bone Splintering Woman. "Am I dealing with a Mutant who thinks they can just push their way through other people just because they happen to have a little advantage in life? Because let me tell you, I've dealt with those before, and most of them are dead now."