Northern Winds [NC-17] (IC)

[Sunblink]

...Deirdre:

When the siege started, Deirdre had decided to take cover. In spite of the fact she would have, technically, been actively provoked by the indiscriminate firing, she wasn't too keen on incriminating herself by fighting the local law enforcement. Running straight into the middle of the blitzkrieg in search of the actual villains wasn't a very smart idea, either. Gritting her beak together, Deirdre leaped for a nearby dumpster and concealed herself behind its metallic surface, steadfastly ignoring the putrid array of acrid stenches the dumpster was issuing. Clamping her hand over the nostrils of her beak, she remained hidden in the alleyway, simmering in the indignity of her impromptu hiding place. As long as she was kept unscathed, she didn't have any right to complain, but she truly wished there were more sanitary options.

Whenever Deirdre dared to peek from behind the dumpster, she didn't see anyone familiar from the club amidst the siege, or any suspicious figures. Then again, that term was fairly hypocritical, considering her group was most assuredly comprised of suspicious people. Deirdre tucked herself back against the wall and clutched her sword closer, toying with the hilt to alleviate some of her anxiety.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing screech rang out far down the alleyway. Deirdre nearly injured herself when her thumb slipped, nearly nicking her skin against the edge of her partially-unsheathed sword. As a swordswoman, she conceded she should have been more responsible with her blade, but goddamn she was embarrassed. Stumbling out from her hiding spot, not bothering to dust herself off, nurse her cut thumb, or correct her very disorganized hair, Deirdre charged down the alleyway. She swept her sword from its scabbard. Up ahead she saw a blurry shape she thought was a person dash away from another, darker smudge lying on the ground. At first, Deirdre suspected murder, but if that shape was the one who screamed, then that wouldn't make any sense. As she approached, she could smell something acrid, and hear a faint sizzling.

The shape had retreated back in her house. Deirdre couldn't go in to investigate, but instead decided to focus on the body on the ground. She couldn't see the extent of its injuries, but she recognized the well-pressed suit once she got close enough. She panicked. "SHIT!" Deirdre dropped to her knees, laid her sword nearby, and grabbed the body's shoulders without thinking, hoping to resuscitate him. By all logic, Deirdre didn't owe her captors anything for dragging her into this mess, but she didn't want any of them dead! "Are you okay!? A-"

With Deirdre's eyesight, she couldn't properly assess the look on the body's face. He looked very gray and pasty; so she assumed he was suffocating or had already died. In the interest of examining his injuries, Deirdre leaned in, squinting her eyes -

- and promptly choked, releasing the bat's shoulders from her talons. He flopped in a dead way against the asphalt, his head rolling to the side. A wet sound clicked in his dislocated neck, like torn muscle coming apart. Deirdre tried to move back, tried to look away, but she couldn't stop staring. The bat's face was mostly gone, some of the skin obliterated, peeled and seared off in enormous, black-ringed craters. Strips and bits of scorched flesh, like slices of barbecued beef marinated in crude oil, clung to the grayish, darkened and singed bone. Tangled ringlet-tendrils of white-blond hair were singed and stank of burned hair, framing his mutilated features like an ugly wreath of blackened fur, hair, and peeled, charred skin. The bone was gray and polished, his disproportionate jaw, adorned with tattered flesh, hanging agape to reveal his serrated teeth, and...

His eye sockets were vacant and smoking, as though their former occupants had been reduced to smoldering detritus. The sizzling noise and that hideous smell was emitting from his blood on the pavement.

Deirdre did not react. She just stared in what seemed like hopeless, delayed silence. Her mind was just filled with white dust, buzzing endlessly, until something in her brain clicked.

[Boog]

Everything was going to hell, really fast.
Richard was still trying to get his bearings in the crowd's panic, an objective that was getting tougher by the second. Crowd! Shouting! Cops? Mustalid smell...? What-?
"Baboon!" Wait, I know that voice. the undead cast around in a panic for its source and, in the parting crowd, saw Laertes.
"... Oh. Fuck. Me." He took two steps back from the jackal, casting about for anything he could do. Mel had suggested leaving earlier, he remembered. That was looking pretty good right about now. Something nudged him in the side and his hand flew to a pocket that he'd been CERTAIN had been empty...
No time to ponder that. Continuing a litany of curses that could blister paint Richard sent a freeze spell skittering along the ground toward the jackal and making a break for the nearest building he could shelter in from the inevitable explosion of fury. The 'kick 'em inna bollocks and run like hell' strategy had yet to steer him wrong, right?

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Before Mel could get to the back room she heard voices, angry shouting voices. Shouting too loud to hear her in the front. These people were too emotional for her to manipulate into misremembering which red clad canine had visited the shop. As she retraced her steps to the doorway she cast a quick spell to destroy any magical traces. The mess outside ought to be sufficient to focus the investigators on Laertes and company. When she reached the doorway she saw that the jackal had not left after all and was focusing on Richard. Caught by surprise the best she could offer was a boost to his freeze spell. An ice dragon boost.

[Stygian]

Unfortunately, against an enemy like Laertes an ice spell of Richard's capability was merely an obstacle. Not to mention the jackal was prepared. Or, at least, that's what he thought. He considered a blast of heat and light for an instant to smash the other spell away, but the resulting explosion might very well injure more people than a simple deflect might. So instead, he stopped into an almost bracing stance with his elbow out, and a golden shield of light burst out in front of him. The ice spell smashed into it.
   Unfortunately for Laertes, the unexpected power of the spell was more than enough to overcome that line of defense, and he only had a glimpse of a second to react to the flash freezing. His face locked in a surprised and unwittingly comical expression, right before a veritable cliff of frosty crystal erupted out in a large cone from the point of impact with his shield and beyond. Of the jackal's stiffened form, only a minor shadow could be seen within the glacier that had now overtaken the street and the side of a building, not to mention three more bystanders. Screaming from the street below revealed that someone had tumbled over the railing along the side of the upper walkway, and on the far side of the cone of frost two people were screaming, one bleeding with an icicle through his arm and the other cut deeply and with her leg stuck in the ice.
   Down the street, the officers all stopped, nearly in synchronization. Then, one of them slowly raised a radio to his mouth, and spoke something. They were going to need a lot more than they currently had.

- -

A couple of seconds passed, and there was a loud crackling sound in the alley just behind her that distracted Deirdre away from the corpse before her. The acrid smell was in her nose, and for a moment, the sound of screaming people drew her attention. Enough that she had no warning.
   Suddenly, with a jerk, the gryphon's arm was seized by a clutching, clawed hand, strong and hard as stone. And with an impossible, wide-jawed and horrifying screech, the 'corpse' of the bat nearly shot up from the ground, his twisted voice half roaring and half snarling nearly unintelligible words in some language that sounded as frightening as his mutilated face. Tendons and seared flesh stretching, wet and sizzling tendrils of blackness crawling around and inside his still empty eye sockets, the bat seized Deirdre by the neck as he screamed and shook, teeth as long as her fingers just an inch from her face. His other hand was thrashing and groping about, and he moved with blind, furious disorientation. After a couple of screams and a few seconds, at last the gryphon thought she could make something out.
    'OHSHHRRGHELLDAMNYUFUCKINGIDIOOOOAAARRRRGH!' Stygian roared. At least, that was the closest approximation Deirdre could make at the time. Not that she was not quite busy with trying futilely to pry the bat's hand off her neck, as he was starting to both lift and choke her somewhat.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel stared in surprise at the mess Laertes had made. The bugger must have been trying to do something showy that interacted with her booster to Richard's spell. She had only boosted it to the level required to freeze and paralyze his muscles until the police arrived. While anyone who tried to show off in crowded street deserved what he got the innocent bystanders certainly didn't.

One short teleport took her to the rooftop to survey the damage. She snorted, someone was overcompensating for something. She bet he had his shield set up to flare in a dramatic light show when hit and when it tried to grab the spell and convert it to light had found itself overwhelmed and his entire shield had fed the spell instead. Still, it showed he was powerful, if his shield was strong enough to throw this much power into Richard's spell via her booster. Luckily the undead had chosen a freeze spell and it wouldn't take her long to remove the near-glacier, leaving just a glittering ice statue in the middle of the street.

[SpottedKitty]

Kerya's ears perked forward as she nodded to Keaton. "If there is anything we can do," she whispered. "I saw Laertes' face as he passed by, he means some gory mischief to as many of us as he can put claw to." She crept stealthily along the street at the jackal's side, placing her paws on the ground as gently and silently as she could, keeping what she hoped was a safe distance from Laertes. At least her masking spell appeared to be working properly: Keaton hadn't sensed her presence until she was brought inside the spell's effect, and Laertes didn't seem to have detected her use of magic. She looked ahead to see what — or who — had caught his attention.

"It's Richard!" she hissed urgently into Keaton's ear, "Look ahead, Laertes is stalking Richard!" The little stoat drew some power from her staff and quickly began to mould it into a sequence of spells. An illusion or two first, to distract Laertes from looking for her second spell, the true attack. The lightning bolt last night had done him little harm, so... perhaps Keaton could put a dent in his skull with that great mace of hers? A Web of Restraining, then, to make him hold still for the jackal's gentle attentions.

Kerya was almost finished with her preparations, the fingers of her free hand scribing hasty sigils in the air, when Richard caught sight of Laertes, launched a minor ice spell at him, and ran for the cover of an open doorway. Just then, Mel came out of the wrecked shop and did something to enhance the baboon's spell. Laertes met the attack with a shield of golden light, but at the point of contact the spell erupted into a massive wall of ice, spreading out across the street.

Kerya chittered in alarm and shouted a warning to Keaton. There was no time to dodge or run out of the way. She aborted her half-cast spells and used the power to throw up a hasty shield, reinforcing it on the outside with a heat spell powerful enough to run a blacksmith's forge all day. She braced herself for the impact as the ice swallowed up Laertes and loomed up, closer and higher...

WHAM!

Both women were tossed like leaves in a gale as the edge of the ice slammed into Kerya's shield. It held, although its surface rippled and shimmered with rainbow light, so Keaton and Kerya were only shaken up, instead of smashing heads-first into a solid brick wall on the other side of the street.

"Ow... not quite what I had intended... Keaton, are you all right?" Kerya asked. Her head was still spinning, but she scrambled upright, clinging to the wall, as quickly as she could. And stood there for a moment, eyes wide with surprise, staring at the great mass of ice filling the street. She was just about to turn to speak to Keaton again when a throat-tearing shriek of rage and agony came from a nearby alley, drowning out the mere screams of the injured passers-by caught up in the catastrophe. The little stoat grabbed Keaton's arm — she might be badly burned if she fell out of the shield, the outside surface was probably still very hot — and ran to investigate, pulling the jackal along behind her.

[Cogidubnus]

 The wolf's quick ears caught the sound of Carey continuing up the metal pathway - Cog made a face, and continued on, about at the edge of the building before Carey managed to get onto the roof. The wolf reached the end of the concrete roof and stopped, the wind tugging at his clothing - and paused. He had caught sight of something in the mess of rooftops and streets out there. Carey saw him wave at something quickly, before the wolf turned, looking at the otter dead center as he ran at him.

Cogidubnus smiled, gave a two-fingered salute off the edge of his hat, and quite deliberately fell backwards off the roof and out of sight.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel wasn't quite finished removing all the ice when she spotted something on the roof opposite. Cog waved to her then jumped off the roof. Forgetting the almost cleaned up scene below she rapidly shifted her spell casting to a different sort of thing entirely. A soft popping sound was the only reminder that anyone had ever been there.

"You have great faith in my abilities, I see," commented the grey-clad feline as she looked at the menu at small table at the outdoor café just down the street from where the cops were now swarming. She set the menu down and smiled at the rather disarranged wolf sitting opposite her.

[Aisha deCabre]

Outstanding.  JUST outstanding.

Aisha had kept her eyes closed and her body, along with the things she brought (first aid kits and supplies still untouched) in the cranny in front of the store's doorway, alongside Gareeku...the wolf and panthress were perhaps the only ones left standing aside in the chaos...the others having left no clues.  She had her sunglasses idly twitching in the fingers of one hand.  The other was rubbing the bridge of her nose as she tried to wait all of it out.

She could catch many a thing with her clear hearing, much of it loud and disastrous, but nothing she hadn't heard before.  Screaming from the surprised and scared occupants...shouts of authority from the throng of cops that were rushing across to the store above where it all started...blasts of magic and more screaming...

Clearly, this was something that didn't have waiting it out as an option.

When a scream from nearby had Dierdre scrambling out into the crowd in investigation, nearby across the store in an alley, that was the final straw.  Aisha didn't care whether or not she would be associated with trouble, so long as everyone was out of there, and all of the stupid people accounted for and given a good chastising.

As far as she knew, everyone was apart but herself and the wolf.  "Damn it all, that's it," Aisha growled and grabbed the handle of her boomerang from the pile of stuff behind her.  She figured that they would be safe hidden in the shadows there until she returned; and she would.

Suddenly, there were shadows above...all around, there was a rooftop chase that seemed to be going on.  Aisha couldn't get a good look at who was chasing who, but she did catch a glimpse of a few familiar colors.  Cogidubnus, perhaps, pursued by others.  Mel, Kerya, Ignatz, Richard...all nowhere to be seen.

That was one way to go...but there was also where the crowd was surging away...and where a lot more authorities seemed to be rushing to.  And finally, there was the different direction that Dierdre had gone.

"Mierda, mierdaaaaaa..." The feline growled in frustration, looking around.  She wanted to get the ones responsible, who were still somewhere...but perhaps the main priority was finding their party members.  That was a good idea to have more numbers should they run into what surely had to be more antagonists.

Aisha put her glasses back on and turned back to Gareeku, ready to bolt at a moment's notice, but still having the urge to wait.  She didn't want to be any more separated than they were, and woe betide if anything happened to him...

"Well, forget about getting to the trouble, mi amigo...think we should find everyone and get the hell out of here?  Might have to fight our way out too."

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

Kerya's warning didn't quite register in Keaton's mind when she first heard it. Over the rapid beating of her heart thrumming in her ears, Keaton mistook her shouting for just another voice screaming in the background. Presumably there were some casualties elsewhere in the city, which profoundly bothered and agitated Keaton. She assumed this was they were not supposed to attract attention, especially not on this magnitude - in a matter of seconds, as Keaton ruminated on her situation, she was cursing fitfully, and -

Oh, shit. Kerya had shouted something. Almost immediately, Keaton skidded to a halt, trying to keep herself from running ahead of Kerya's shield. Fortunately, she stopped just in time, but was not prepared for the impact of the approaching spell. While the shield endured the blast, the resulting quake knocked Keaton off her feet and sent her sprawling in a painful position across the asphalt, her head spinning and whirring. At first, when Keaton's knee grazed the pavement, she surmised that she felt something torn there - one look over the graphically-imagined wound actually confirmed that the injury was just superficial. No more than a scrape a careless child would sustain. However, her head still hurt and she was in a slight bit of disbelief over what had happened, although she was grateful she hadn't hit her head on something.

Keaton sat upright. Something crunched underneath her; she realized it was a garbage can. She landed right on top of it. "Owowowow..." she mumbled, holding her face, then answered somewhat shakily. "Y-Yeah, I'm fine. I'm - ow. Yeah, fine. Are - hey!"

Now there was more screaming, this time nearly incomprehensible in its message, emanating from far away. Keaton turned her head in its direction, blanching - that was not the sound a normal person would make when hurt! It was inhuman! When Kerya grabbed her arm and dragged her to her feet, she blindly obeyed, trailing behind and moving along with the stoat. She was completely ignorant about any potential fate or grotesque sight that awaited.

---

...Deirdre:

After years of Adventuring, Deirdre had learned not to take threats to her life lying down. When Stygian hefted her into the air, there was only a momentary delay as she frantically perused her options, flailing and thrashing mindlessly in Stygian's grip, until she stopped abruptly altogether and looked at him like an agitated cat. Her fur bristled, her pupils pinpricked, and her ears laid flat against her head, her face fixated into an expression of pure terror, even as she prepared herself. Her sword! Why did her sword have to be so far away?! She couldn't stand a chance against Stygian in unarmed combat, but she didn't want to die. Not so soon.

Screaming and snarling, Deirdre clawed and slashed at Stygian's arms with her talons, raking her nails across his flesh. When she realized her flailing wasn't working, she blindly pulled her hand back and slashed him across the face in a movement quite akin to a slap, deliberately aiming to strike him across his mutilated face with her claws. Unarmed combat was not Deirdre's specialty, but she still had some equipment to, at least, distract her opponent until she could escape. As long as Stygian loosened his grip, she could take advantage of his pain and flee.

If all else failed... Deirdre was not above kicking him in the groin, even at risk of infuriating her assailant.

[Stygian]

Yet, if Deirdre had expected that maneuver to wound the bat much further, she would have to reconsider her approach. Stygian's flesh was already starting to squirm and seethe and writhe, forcing itself together with eye-torturing, disgusting movements. Her claws scraped bone and made scratches into flesh that immediately began to sizzle back. Yet, it seemed that her struggling amounted to something at least. The bat froze in place, and his snarling, even his breathing seemed to stop, as his grip lost its squeezing hardness, yet remained in place. His distorted features seemed to stare at her even more intensely for a few seconds, before he released her abruptly, her bottom hitting the pavement hard.
   'I... need...' the bat began, head bobbing back and forth in place, his empty eye sockets searching futilely. He touched his absent face with a hand, and growled. 'Need... I... face... feels...'
   Suddenly, his ears, one of them singed down halfway, twitched, and he turned approximately in the direction of the corner to the alley, his face still a grinning, horribly toothy skull with little worm-like tendrils of black crawling all over it as he began getting to his feet.

[SpottedKitty]

Kerya came running into the street end of the alley, her staff held firmly in one hand, the other towing a still somewhat dazed and shaken-up Keaton. They were still invisible, so all that could be heard were their footsteps. She came to an abrupt halt when she caught sight of the two figures crouching in the shadows. She let go of the jackal and clutched her staff in both hands in a defensive posture. Going from the full daylight on the street to the dim light at the end of the alley, it took a moment for her to recognise Dierdre sitting sprawled on the ground, staring in shock at...

"Sebastian...? Oh, fewmets, your face...!" The little stoat flinched, then dismissed the invisibility and shield spells with a quick gesture. A glowing sphere of iridescent light flared, lighting up the alley for a moment, then it faded, leaving Keaton and Kerya visible again, standing a few yards behind Dierdre.

Kerya took a hesitant step forward, her eyes wide and her ears folded flat. "Sebastian, can you...? does it...? are you... ah... alive?"

[Sunblink]

...Deirdre and Keaton:

Deirdre collapsed to the ground in a feathery, winged lump, largely unresponsive, at first, as though all her struggling and thrashing had diminished her seemingly unlimited stamina. This was indeed the case - Deirdre had learned that spontaneously acting on her impulses wasn't very helpful, since exhausting herself when her oxygen was fairly limited was a very good way to drain her lungs of any breath. The Gryphon laid there for a moment, disoriented, and when the world stopped spinning she immediately sat upright and started assessing her body for any damage. Her face was contorted in an expression of pure panic, and she was quite bedraggled at this point, with her hair disheveled and her suit lopsided and dusty and faintly malodorous from her early sanctuary behind the dumpster. Fortunately, though, she wasn't hurt aside from a slight aching in her throat, and she had fallen just beside her sword, which she snatched up greedily and prepared in case Stygian continued his assault. In another stroke of fortune, he seemed more preoccupied with stumbling about and groping at his maimed, mostly-skinless features.

Deirdre indignantly toyed with the idea of stabbing Stygian in the back for attacking her. Since the asshole seemed nearly invincible anyway, she assumed a sword through the ribcage wouldn't cause any lasting damage, anyway. However, the Gryphon didn't want to risk provoking him again, and simply breathed hard, massaging her throat, reveling in the feeling of her lungs safely inflating, deflating, and carrying oxygen through her body unimpeded. Her talons were smeared with blood from scratching mindlessly at Stygian's arm, which she, numbly, did not realize.

There was a loud cry off to the side. Deirdre felt her pupils pinpricked as she glanced in that direction; standing in the alleyway entrance was a familiar yellow-black blob and a shorter, chocolaty smear who was speaking in a very easily identifiable voice. Deirdre's mind reeled; they weren't there before. Self-consciously, Deirdre glanced down at her talons, noticing the dark color staining the nails, and quickly removed the virulent substance by wiping her hands off on her jacket.

"Holy shit, Sebastian!" Keaton exclaimed, clamping her hands over her mouth at Stygian's mutilated appearance. She resisted the urge to run over and examine his injuries more closely, since she didn't want to do anything that would be perceived as stupid. She assumed that Kerya was the more experienced person in healing magic, anyway. Her own abilities in that domain were limited. Keaton remained where she was, her eyes dancing over Stygian's form. "Are you okay? What happened?! Are--"

Keaton finally noticed Deirdre sitting on the ground and blinked. "What happened to you?" she asked.

Deirdre had finally cleaned her talons. She glared at Keaton and gestured, perhaps far more venomously than she intended, toward Stygian. "Ask him!" she retorted. She sounded far too disdainful, but she wasn't exactly happy at the moment.

[Stygian]

The bat didn't answer. He didn't even seem to notice the three women whatsoever anymore. Shuddering, he clasped a hand over his skull. Reaching, groping for something, he began focusing, forcibly pushing himself to heal. The tendrils and crawling flesh began knitting together.
   'Ffffaaaaaaaceee...' he growled, scraping forward in Kerya's direction, past Deirdre, before finally managing to get to his feet. He didn't look too much better. Stretched, squirming skin still made his features a grimacing, needle-toothed mask. And though he seemed to be healing very rapidly, his voice was still a scraping, gravelly, sick thing as he spoke.
   'I need... something to cover... my...' he rattled, then took a tentative step. His still somewhat hollow, black sockets searched around hopelessly. 'I can't see. Someone's going to have to... help me out here.'

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

For a moment, Keaton seemed to be deeply disturbed by Stygian's predicament as she watched him blindly grope and stumble about. Looking at his vacant eye sockets made her feel sickened - watching his skin gradually regenerate over the naked parts of his exposed skull didn't help her revulsion, or the way she was affected on a more profound level than sheer lurid shock. After a few seconds of silent, speculative thought, Keaton sighed and lifted the stylized, white-patterned shirt she wore over her top over her head, wringing it in her grip. Shredding the edge around the bottom of the shawl, she tore away a sizable band of fabric and approached Stygian, urging him to lean down. Once she got the bat to cooperate, she folded the strip into a clean, thick rectangle and draped it before his eye sockets, binding it behind his head like a makeshift blindfold.

Keaton sighed and patted Stygian on the back, tucking the remains of her shredded shirt under her arm. "There. You owe me a new shirt after this, Styg," Keaton mumbled. Actually, she could easily duplicate the shirt through metamorphosis, since she was fairly skilled at creating clothing, but she wanted to throw that in to hopefully lighten the mood. "Is that okay?"

[SpottedKitty]

Kerya shivered for a moment, her hackles almost managing to rise even with the weight of her new shirt and cloak on her shoulders. Sebastian hadn't actually answered her question, leaving her more than a little uneasy. All right, so the bat was moving about and speaking, although with difficulty, but she knew from painful experience, that was no guarantee the answer to her question would have been "yes".

She skittered to the side when Sebastian lumbered forward. Just in case. As if that wasn't enough, the ruins of his face began to flow back together, black tendrils of something she devoutly hoped was flesh wriggling over the bat's exposed skull. Her stomach lurched, and she came within a whisker's breadth of bringing up her breakfast all over Dierdre.

The little stoat took a deep breath and firmly told her rebellious stomach to behave. While Keaton tended to Sebastian, she knelt at Dierdre's side and put a hand on the agitated Gryphon's shoulder. "Are you all right, Dierdre?" she asked. "There have been some... ah... rather messy and noisy developments out on the street, but Keaton and I still heard that terrific caterwaul. Laertes is here — Mel and Richard have him somewhat discomfited, I think he shall not harry us for a little while. But it seems he attacked Sebastian first..." Kerya's rapid-fire remarks petered out as her glance drifted back to the injured bat.

[Cogidubnus]

"Well, featherfall isn't that hard of a spell. I probably could have pulled it off before I hit the ground." Cog lied. He winked at the leopard. "The swift rescue is much appreciated, though."
He turned. "Excuse me!" he said, motioning to one of the passing waitresses. "Could I get a coffee, please?"

He paused, looking at Mel. "We can wait a few minutes, right?"

[Stygian]

If the bat noticed Kerya looking at him, which was unlikely at the moment, he was not showing it. Rather, he seemed to be collecting and trying to orientate himself. His right hand, hanging at his side, trembled somewhat.
  'We need to get out of here', he said, after a while. His voice was slowly returning to normality, but it was not quite back. There was still a slithering rasp right to the edges of it. 'I'm somewhat... disorientated here. So if someone could assist me?' Putting a significant amount of meaning into the movement, he raised his still somewhat shaky right hand.

- -

Carey hadn't noticed the sudden disappearing trick that Cog had pulled off - or rather, which had been pulled off with him - while mid-air. Standing looking over the edge, off the roof, his gaze flickered back and forth and while tense and looking ready to spring at anything and any point, he had not a clue as to where to go. Luckily for him though, someone else had noticed.
  'Get down from there! He warped off!' Ace shouted up at the otter, before returning to sweeping her irate yellow gaze over the street, searching for signs of whoever it might have been that had transported the wolf. Because it did not look as if he had done it himself.
  The air was clearing, as if some large hand had suddenly come in and swept away most of the flying vessels and creatures like flies, or as if a c-type Gryphon had just shown up. And it was not hard to realize what this meant. Heavy patrols were not far away. Aggravatedly, Ace stared down toward the ruined shop, and the now mostly cleared street. And the rather sudden block of glacial ice in it. There was no going back down the street, so with snapping steps she turned in place, and started back up the street. She just might be able to catch someone before they were at the station again. And if not, she would simply have to do what she could to get Laertes out. She didn't like it, but he was much too valuable an asset to lose...
   Up top, Carey grimaced and looked down at the street and the wolf rushing off. He could probably land that jump with a bit of skill, but from his vantage point and what he saw of the situation, he got this strange feeling. And it was not just the fact that if the wolf really had gone further in the same direction, he'd have lost the chase. It was gut instinct, and maybe a little bit of magic too. And after a while in his occupation, one learned to trust that.
   The otter 'disappeared' his weapon and turned, rushing back over the roof in the exact opposite heading of the wolf.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

"Please put it in a travel cup," Mel added for the waitress. Then to Cog she clarified, "We are still too close to the scene for my comfort."  While they waited for the waitress to return with the coffee the dragon pulled a grey coat and hat from her pouch. She stared at them for a moment and they slowly turned from feminine to masculine attire. "You had better put these on. Finding your coat and hat in the gutter I am pretty sure that the police will be looking for someone wandering about in his shirtsleeves."

After the wolf took the offered garments Mel sort of looked up and down the street. "I put a piece of my jewelry on Kerya so I would be able to locate the group later but it seems to still be in the middle of the scene. I do not know if I hope she dropped it or not."