Koga’s eyes widened as a sleek blade grew across the room, Perhaps Alex was better prepared for the situation than he had thought, He certainly didn’t see that coming. The orderling ducked the blade and was on the move and either his eyes were playing tricks on him or he was disappearing in the dark.

Shade launched a knife across the room and Koga moved to intercept it striking it out of the air with his Tonfa, before it had a chance to make good on its destination. The blade that was flying toward him however he only managed to hedge slightly It sliced through his jacket and left a deep gauge in his upper right arm. He grit his teeth and moved up to the edge of the light in front of Alex and waited for the man to close, He was dangerous he couldn’t let him any closer.

“Alex, get to Ssilver sstreak, I’ll hold him up.” at least he planned on holding him up, if he could disappear, who knew what else he could do. He didn’t intend on finding out until he had at least pummeled him a bit. He stood ready to strike at the man the moment he got close enough.

“Alright. They went into the store. That’s the signal.”

The smallest member of Grim’s squad began walking towards the door of the pottery shop. Several strands of red hair poked out from under her hood. A hand reached out and grabbed her, pulling her back into the alleyway.

“Kate, wait,” whined the jumpy teen. “He said we’d know it when we heard it, and I don’t think –“

Kaitlyn tore his hand from her shoulder. “Matches!” she whispered angrily, “will you stop it already?”

“Hey, I told you my name was flamethrower.”

“Shut up,” she groaned. “I don’t care. I know more than you, and that was the signal.” Kaitlyn had a very low opinion of this ‘flamethrower’ kid. He was four years older than her, but he was so scared that Kaitlyn expected him to wet his pants at any moment, and he didn’t even know what the word ‘scatter’ meant. Specifically, it didn’t involve following Kaitlyn into her hiding place. It involved hiding in a different alleyway, where nobody had to put up with him moaning about his stupid mutant codename that nobody cared about.

“I’m older than you,” he proclaimed. “And everyone knows you were lying about fighting the X-Men and the Vermicis. So I know more than you, and he didn’t give us –“

Kaitlyn ignored him. While he was ranting, she was putting her hands on the wall that separated the alleyway from the inside of the store. With an ear-shattering CRACKOOOM[/b], a large part of that wall turned into tiny chunks that peppered the shop’s inhabitants and knocked over a few vases.

She walked through her new entrance, stepping over the larger bits of debris as assessed the situation inside. 'Flamethrower,' on the other hand, was hiding his head in his arms, ducking away from the blast, and swearing.

Kara was still peeking around the corner when the fighting broke out. But it wasn't fighting in the usual, run-up-and-punch-each-other style. Of course not. Because she just had to have wound up observing a fight between three very powerful-looking mutants.

Watching the rather normal-looking one shoot a greenish extendo-tentacle thing was what first made her crap her pants. But then the third one who she was still having trouble seeing teleported behind him and started throwing little black streaks that looked pretty freaking deadly. All in all, it was scary enough just to watch. And yet, she found herself booking it towards the storefront, anxious to offer whatever services she could. Maybe...maybe someone was hurt.

Maybe she could give them a band-aid while the whole place came down on top of her. Great plan.

She stopped herself on the sidewalk (because stopping in the middle of the street is dangerous) and thought hard about this. And of all the things going on, the one thing she was most scared of was how those people in there would think about her. So she decided to do the sensible thing, pull out her phone, call 911 dispatch, and let them know they had a war zone in the middle of their biggest city.

She was halfway through all that when a very large, loud explosion rang out through the street.

Her ears were ringing. Her brain was scrambled. And she immediately forgot about her assorted phobias and ran for the front door of the pottery shop/front line. Because her brain was just whacked-out enough to make that an option.

She ran past the smashed windows, opened the front door, and yelled out, "Is everyone okay?"

Shawn watched the whole thing from the outside. He watched the guy Koga was protecting attack the shadow mutant first. Obviously going for the element of surprise. Streak had seen that before. It was when they were shooting a movie and looking for mutant extras around the city. He didn't think that he'd be seeing this guy anytime soon. All the more reason to help now, he supposed. He didn't remember his name but the mutation was certainly familiar. There weren't a lot of mutants that could do things like that.

Streak picked himself up off the floor outside the pottery shop. He was about about jump in and start causing a distraction for Koga to get away when the explosion occurred. He shook some of the broken glass off him and shook his head to get some of the ringing out of his ears. When his vision cleared, he was on the move. He jumped through the now broken window. What was the point of a door if there was a giant opening to go through that was easier. Oddly there was a girl that decided to see if anyone was hurt.

b"Is everyone okay?"

"Get out of here and call the cops." Streak said to her. It probably came out a bit angry and mean, but he didn't need to be responsible for some random person, along with helping Koga rescue this guy. This was about to get bad quickly. Streak formed two knives in each hand. He'd fought this guy before. It'd been a while but he was pretty sure that this guy's style couldn't have changed that much in the elapsed time. Streak pulled down the shutters and let a little more of the outside light in. "I don't think he'll have time to get to me. We need to get him to the mansion." Streak told Koga.

That was the safest place around. Especially since he'd made modifications that most of the X-men didn't even know about. The silvermancer turned to the new entrance to the building that the builder hadn't had in their original design plans. He stood looking at a girl with their person between him and Koga. Kind of like an X-Men sandwich. Streak now spoke to his old shadow enemy. "You've been quiet for a long time. What brings you back? Run out of kids to scare?" Streak knew the talking wouldn't last long but the longer they talked the more time it gave him to stop his head from spinning. That concussive blast he received had really done a number on him. He was getting better though. If they could get into the street they would have a better chance than inside this confined building. They'd also have a chance to get to his car and back to the mansion. Inside they were at a disadvantage.

While the expression on Alex's face remained neutral, he was smiling slightly on the inside. He could see it in the shadow mutant's eyes that he hadn't been expecting the malachite blade to shoot out from Alex's elbow. That inward smile vanished however when the man avoided the attack and vanished into the shadows, only to pop out of another one and threw a black throwing knife at the malachite manipulator and at Koga. Alex was in the middle of retracting the malachite blade from his right arm while turning around and forming a malachite shield in his left hand to block the incoming attack when Koga, using those night sticks of his, blocked the knife heading for Alex... though Alex's rescuer got a small hit from the blade that was heading towards himself.

"Thanks." Alex stated with a nod as the blades from his right elbow were fully retracted back into the bracer that was hidden under his leather jacket, while the shield that was forming on Alex's left arm was now fully formed so it was two and a half feet wide and three and a half feet tall, and was two inches thick. Alex's glowing green eyes were locked onto the shadow mutant and was ready for the next move when his ears started ringing from a massive KABOOM that shook more then half of Alex's merchandise off the shelves, and they all shattered when they hit the ground. For a moment all Alex could hear was a high-pitched ringing sound in his ears and his vision was doubled since the blast knocked his eyes out of focus for a short time. Slowly though his eyes cleared and he could hear everything else, but his head was still ringing... and the malachite shield showed the loss of concentration. It had ripples on the surface of it similar to that of when you drop a rock into a still pond.

As Alex's head cleared, the ripples started to smooth out, Alex glanced around to figure out what had happened to cause this... and he saw a large hole in the side of his shop with a young girl standing in the center of the hole as if she had done that. "You couldn't of used the back or front door? You had to make a name for yourself by blasting a hole in my wall. My insurance doesn't cover explosions you know!" Alex grumbled at the girl before he turned back to the shadowy man as another person entered the shop and took his place between the malachite manipulator and this new threat, and confronted it with silver knifes. That was when the guy looked familiar from when Alex was playing the part of an extra in a movie, and Koga had called him Silver. It was nice to have some more back up, but still, they were in a pickle. There was also a bystander in the doorway of his shop, and Silver had directed her to call the cops and to leave. Okay, so help was going to be on the way... but this wasn't that helpful. They had to get outside... but how the heck were they gonna get out?

With an angry grunt, Alex's shield shifted form so it was a round shield now that was three and a half feet across and three inches thick... and the outer edge was lined with sharp razor blades so it looked like the rotating saw of an electrical saw. The razors started to rotate along the edge of the shield, so it looked like the malachite shield was now a large spinning saw. As Alex was doing this, Alex formed a three and a half foot long broad sword in his right hand that was also edged with razor blades, and they started to rotate along the edge of the blade making look like a chainsaw sword. Alex had finished doing both actions with his power in a matter of seconds... and he was more then willing to use them. With both malachite weapons whistling because they were rotating so quickly, Alex glanced at Koga, then at Silver, and nodded slightly. He was ready, and he clearly heard where they were intending to go: the X-mansion.

With that, Alex glanced back at the girl that blew a hole in his wall, and narrowed his glowing green eyes in sorrow. "A child like you, mutant or not, shouldn't have to deal with such things. I'm so sorry." Alex stated calmly, and his sad tone showed that he was truly sorry for her. Without another word, Alex swung his extending chainsaw sword at floor near the shadow mutant while his shield was used to cut in half a nearby support beam. The malachite cut right through the cement floor, and after making several slashes in a matter of seconds, the floor started to groan and cave in. With the floor giving way into the basement and the wall already damaged, more parts of the old run-down building started to give way. Without saying another word, Alex jumped backwards and dove out the broken window, and landed on his feet. He turned around, shield ready to block anything that was thrown at him... while hoping he would see Koga and Silver jump out behind him and see the building collapse on the shadow jumper. "So much for my pottery business."

Grim's face contorted into a sneer when he witnessed the lizardman deflect his blade. This mutant was faster than Grim gave him credit for...well, maybe not. The second blade had struck home on his opponent's upper arm. That would at least slow him down...hopefully. Another knife slid into Grim's hand as he prepared to move into another shadow. But then a wall exploded.

The blast was violet enough to pepper the shadow mutant with rubble. He would probably have a few bruises from the larger pieces. However, at the moment, he was more concerned about his hearing. There was a loud constant ringing in his right ear. He couldn't hear anything with his left. Literally, nothing. Reaching up to check it, Grim's hand came away bloody. He was lucky that he wasn't knocked off his feet.

Dust from the vaporized bricks and cement made Grim's vision cloudy. However, he could tell who the figure, standing on the other side of the wall was from her silhouette.

"I told you to wait for the signal!" Shade coughed out, a little too loudly due to his hearing lost. However, the Orderling's attention was snapped back to the real trouble in the room when he heard a woman's voice, (barely) over the ringing in his ears. The X-men were already gearing up for the fight.

"I'll take the shiny one and the lizard. You want the potter?" Shade said, taking a quick glance at Kaitlyn. However, it was enough time for the malachite mutant to destroy the floor beneath him. Shade staggered back, trying to avoid falling into the growing crevice forming in the ground. However, the collapsing floor caught up to him and brought him down too into the dark abyss before the roof began to cave in and follow the shadow mutant into the growing hole in the floor.

Teleporting assassin: check

Exploding wall: check

Innocent good Samaritan: check

Proactively dangerous Witness: Check

Silver streak as back up: check

Odds that this was going to go well…slim.

Koga’s eyes widened as the wall exploded behind Shadow McTelepants. The order was going the distance for some human fall guy. Maybe it was the principle of the matter. If they wouldn’t let you take a pawn, think of the links they might go to if you went after a rook, knight or a queen.

Koga cringed at streaks angry tone, The lady was just doing her best to make sure people were safe. He could respect that, however, he didn’t have much time to take his eyes off the people in front of him.
Things were intense, Silver streak formed a line with him and Alex, they were sizing up and…then Alex who was proving himself more and more capable every moment, let go of sanity and started destroying the shop..more than the order was. the floor started to groan and then the teleporter was falling and gone. Alex made his escape and he hoped that Streak would make sure the kind samaratin made it clear of the door way. He was going to kill them with kindness.

Koga leaped onto a shelf and ran across it and then dived toward the exsplosive girl and her nervous counterpart. His feet landed dead center of the teen males chest and his arms reached for the girl, hopefully knocking all three clear of the building and debris.

Making a quick snap decision, Kara decided it'd be much safer to listen to the angry man with knives coming out of his hands and go call the cops. She quickly ducked away from the door and just out of sight of those inside. As much as she wanted to see what was going on, in case she could help, she had no keen desire to get hit by a stray...projectile.

She struggled with her phone a bit, as the bulky little brick was deciding to take her wild finger-taps as vague suggestions rather than direct commands. Her palms were sweating as they tried desperately to dial 9-1-1, rather than 9-1-2-1, or 8-2-1-1-2. Inside the building she could hear shouting, as well as another explosion-like sound that sounded a lot like the building collapsing. Finally, she got the numbers right, and pressed 'Call.'

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"Um...there's..." Kara's attempt to get all the words out at once just ended in disaster, so she stopped and tried again. "I'm...at a pottery shop. It's on...uhh...." She began looking around, searching for a street sign. Instead, the mysterious man with the sharp blue-green tentacle things was dashing out the front door at high speed. She immediately turned, and shouted a quick, "Hey!"

Then, shoving aside a fairly little qualm, she asked, "Um...wh--what's the address for this...place?

"Once again you over estimate yourself Shade." Streak said to his old enemy. The Order members didn't seem as together as they normally were for operations like this. It was probably a good thing since Koga and himself were outnumbered.

The talk the silvermancer was having with Shade was cut short when the all to familiar malachite cut through the pottery shop floor and he disappeared from view. "Now's out chance to make like a tree and split." He said to Koga. Streak knew the saying perfectly well but he refrained from those choice words because the situation just didn't seem right for them. Besides if he knew anything about the Order, which he did, they had best escape now or they'd be heading towards certain all out battle.

Streak dashed out the same way he came in the shop and hoped that his lizard friend was following him. "Ok time to go buddy. Come with me if you vant to live." Shawn recognized the face but the name escaped him. His best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression was still horrible but it was more that he got the point across with this guy.

"I know this guy they after you. He's not good. The mansion is the only place where you can be safe from him. Lets go. He can follow us as long as theirs shadows." Streak started leading the way back to his car. "Koga! Grab the girl and let's go!" He didn't want to hear about any accidents on the news about some bystander that they'd left at the scene of the battle.

As Alex stood outside on the street watching his pottery shop crumble, Alex wondered if he had gone overboard. No, he did go overboard, to the point that he might have not just buried the shadow jumper assassin, but perhaps the two guys that also showed up to give him a hand. The malachite manipulator stood there as he watched the shadow jumper, Shade as the silver man called him, back pedaled to avoid getting swallowed up by the collapsing floor... but he wasn't fast enough and he fell only to have a section of the ceiling fall onto him as well. "That should buy a few seconds, if not a minute." Alex stated to no one in particular as his glowing green eyes narrowed and shifted over to Koga. The young man was moving over to the young girl and her comrade in an attempt to push them away from the collapsing building. Oh yeah, Alex really went overboard when he took down his own shop. He could of sent a spike into the floor and had it come up behind Shade and stab him in the back, or he could of used one growing poll to turn on all of the lights to eliminate most of the shadows then take out Shade with a pincer attack, or Alex could've just run. Nope, he just had to destroy his own shop and home.

Deep down, Alex knew that is was a bad decision too. The think with being buried in rubble, you were normally enveloped by the rubble's shadow... which meant Shade was currently within the shadow of the rubble that was falling on him. All Alex did was create a distraction and maybe shake up his opponents a bit... but that was it and it wasn't enough. He had to make them turn back or he had to eliminate them all... or do option number three which was run, and that was a nice looking option right now. The voice of the teenage girl near him got Alex to look away from the shop and and the young woman. She had her cell against her ear, and had clearly called 9-1-1... why else would she ask for the address of his shop?

"We're on the corner of 7th Ave and West 58th street. We have a mutant assassin that uses shadows so tell them to bring spot lights." Alex responded before he glanced west and noticed that the sun was setting behind the buildings in that direction, and a shadow was stretched half way across the road... one big jumping spot for a shadow teleporter. "My kingdom for a lantern right now..." Alex muttered as he turned to the sliver man, whom quickly stated that they had to leave. "No need to tell me twice..." Alex responded before turning back to the young woman. "Lets go! You're not safe here. You gotta move. Now!"

Alex started to follow the silver man back to his vehicle as the guy started to talk about how he knew Shade and that he wasn't good... but he wouldn't dare go near the mansion. "Understandable. That place has an army in there if you all chose to fight. I'm glad that you guys prefer peace. Almost makes me wanna sign up there... if I was still a kid that is." Alex responded as he constantly turned his head back and forth, examining every shadow he could see, but he knew well the chances of him catching a glimpse of Shade was rather low.

It had only taken Shade a second of darkness in the black pit before he 'ported out of the collapsing building and onto the darkening street outside the shop. He used his invisibility as a tool for observance as the shadow mutant tried to figure out what exactly the Xmen's plans were. It appeared they were trying to take his victim into the safety of the mansion. Now, Shade couldn't just let them escape. They began to make their way towards an awaiting car. Well, that obviously had to go.

Shade sent several blades spinning from the shadows aiming for the tires of car. The first one pierced the front tire as the rest impacted into the side of the car in a sprayed pattern, slicing to the thin metal. The shadow mutant smiled at his work before quickly 'porting out of that shadow to another to avoid detection. Now, with their transportation taken care of, it was time to ensure no more people joined their little endeavor.

Que talking girlie on her cell phone. Shade positioned himself behind the chatty brunette then when she was close enough to his hiding spot, he launched himself at her hoping to knock her to the ground and separate her from her communication device.

"We're on the corner of 7th Ave and West 58th street. We have a mutant assassin that uses shadows so tell them to bring spot lights."

Kara nodded at the man's statement and talked as fast as she possibly could to relay the information to the dispatcher. Granted, the fastest she could speak was at normal human speed. But she managed to get out the address of the rather ruined shop, and something about a shadow mutant, before the dispatcher interrupted her.

"It's okay, just calm down. How close are you to the site?"

"I'm...um...a couple feet or so..."

The same man who told her the address of the shop turned to her and shouted, "Lets go! You're not safe here. You gotta move. Now!"

She felt her body began to panic as she backpedaled as quickly as she could.

Right before she was tackled from behind.

She hit the ground shoulder-first, her cell-phone flying out of her hands only to break into several components a few yards down the sidewalk. And any semblance of self-control Kara had went up in smoke the minute that guy touched her. She started screaming at the top of her lungs, flailing wildly in a desperate attempt to escape. Her brain kept screaming at her, "ERROR! ERROR!" In another one of her wild, knee-jerk reactions, her whole body subsequently flashed with enough intensity to light up half the street.

Streak saw the knives fly past him and the guy he was rescuing. They struck his car. "Come on man! Don't you have any self respect." Streak said as he stopped running towards his knife impaled car. There's three things you don't do in a fight. One, mess with a dudes car. Two, hit him in the balls. And three... Hit a girl. Apparently Shade was just determined to break all the rules tonight. Streak needed to teach him a lesson. "Keep going to the car. It'll still run." Streak said to Alex. I think He added under his breath.

The silvermancer turned and headed back towards the girl that was now flailing on the ground. Her cell phone was now gone but the cops were on their way so even if his car didn't run they could take them to the mansion. His run to rescue the girl was stopped abruptly as he was temporarily blinded. "Ahh! What the hell?!" Streak asked confused and for the second time tonight disoriented. As his vision cleared he saw the girl still lying on the floor; but he didn't see the attacker. Maybe the bright light had made him run away to his shadows. Shade's goon squad was catching up to them. Unfortunately, they didn't look like they were to disoriented by the blinding light. Maybe they were to far away when it happened. Streak created a silver staff and said, "Quick get up! Head towards the car." Streak still wasn't sure that his car could get them out of there but it was worth a shot. EVen if he did mess up the tires a little.

As the goons attacked the X-men fended them off one by one. The first one attacked. He had a bat and was swinging for the fences. Streak blocked and moved out of the way as his momentum carried him the rest of the way across the street. Fortunately, there was a street light still on pretty close by. As the second attacked, his block intercepted the knife that was coming at his stomach and he countered with a smack across his face. The bat guy was coming back at him from behind and got a swift kick to the stomach as he ran straight into Streak's foot. The big question on Streak's mind was where did Shade go?

(OOC: Shade let me know if I need to change anything)