Brotherhood Beatdown: Tobias

[Tobias Smith]

As absolutely fan-fucking-tastic the Institute is, sometimes, Tobias just needs to get the hell away from home...even if it isn't home. Now, normally getting away could be difficut...but normally, Tobias doesn't have access to the Institute's garage, or the keys. As such, Tobias has an oppurtunity, and seizes it.

So, it is not surprising when Tobias, tonight wearing a slightly tattered black T-shirt, black jeans with several holes in them, Crow-esque makeup, trenchcoat and all pulls up to a local club in a black Ford Mustang. Fortunately, he has not found any of the probable "custimations" that are made on most of the Institute's vehicles. Security is lax, and to summarize things fairly simply, the following list shall be used.

1. Toby walks into club, notes loud music, punk band, and a generally gothic atmosphere.
2. Toby dances a bit (if you can call what they do dancing)
3. Toby buys a beer. Just one, and drinks.
4. Toby goes back to dancing for a bit.
5. Toby gets tired of the same old crap.
6. Toby makes out with some random drunk goth chick.
7. Toby leaves the club, drives around town a bit, before stopping in a park simply out of boredom.

With that almost routine evening behind him, Tobias leaves the car again, and begins just to walk through the park on one of the many paths. As usual, his expression is apathetic at best, and he has a random assortment of music playing from the headphones he is wearing. True, that was his first club run since coming from the west coast...but it was just more of the same. Less drugs, but still, he was going to admit life had gotten boring.

He sighs, and just continues along the path nor paying much attention. The last time he had felt any escitement really was that freakish invasion, and he had almost died during that. The murder investigation had been interesting too, but still...the only real fun or interesting times he had were with the X-Men. Tobias closes his eyes, and literally debates the facts in his mind. Christ...I've been here for a few months, and its all fucked up. I came to learn to control my powers, and I have...but each time I can just stay longer, and longer...but its not worse than home...kinda better actually. I mean...I actually have some fun here...plenty of stuff to paint, sketch....but I am stuck with that jackass Pyro....but still....this place is too fucking boring at times....I mean....maybe I should talk to Ms. Munroe about maybe joining...like an...X-Intern...or something.....That'd be kinda cool I guess.....I mean, hell, I coud fight terrorism....nearly get killed...and get one of those leather suits...........gotta admit....damn good suits....

And naturally, during all of this, Tobias does not have a clue about what is about to happen....

[Rahne Sinclair]

Rahne has no idea how Primer knew the boy was here… something involving cameras and satellites and the other strange things she was seeing on the Brotherhood’s telly, no doubt. She doesn’t understand any of it, any more than she understands how the man who brought her to this park can just disappear from one place and appear in another like... like… well, actually it isn’t like anything at all… or rather, nothing else is like it.

But really, none of that matters. She’s here now, and so is the boy they’re supposed to “test.” He’s a mutant also, apparently, but one of the enemy, which makes him a target. Oddly, Primer does not want him killed, though… not even seriously damaged. They are to engage him, threaten him, establish what he is capable of and what his weaknesses are. It’s a daft way to hunt the enemy, to Rahne’s way of thinking, but it isn’t her place to question it.

This park is full of smells and sounds of people, even late at night… tilting her head from side to side and tasting the breeze with her ears perked, she marks five fresh scents upwind of her, none very far away. Without a sound, she moves to investigate them, a patch of darkness sliding from tree to tree, barely distinguishable from her surroundings.

Once scent is female, and another elderly; neither is her target. The third is slightly hidden behind some bushes along with the fourth, and she barely pauses for them, observing no longer than necessary to confirm that neither is her target, and wrinkles her nose in distaste at their ungodly disportation. Ordinarily she would take a moment to purge their filth, but she is on a mission and does not want to fail Primer.

The last scent is young and male, more recently bathed than the others, smelling faintly of beer and cosmetics and the traces of a young girl. As she approaches she hears something she supposes is music; when he comes within sight she recognizes him from the pictures. He appears oblivious to his surroundings, his eyes closed, his ears plugged by odd devices from which the music is blaring.

Is the boy daft? He may as well bare his throat! It occurs to Rahne that he might be luring her to attack him by appearing completely helpless, but she doesn’t think so… he carries himself with the air of prey unaware of the hunter. Besides, ‘tis easy to find out, she thinks as she approaches her prey silently.

She’s supposed to wait until the team is assembled; Primer was clear about this… but this boy is clearly no kind of threat, and her blood is growing hot now that her prey’s taste is in her mouth, and she is becoming impatient. Ach, to the Devil with it!, she thinks, and moves in behind the boy to strike. She’s not permitted to kill or maim the sinner, but she can still taste his blood – and more importantly, his fear – before she is required to share.

[Primer]

[[sorry so long, I was having fun being able to write in the car on my shiny new laptop and may've gotten carried away]]

Clunk the lid of the trashcan clatters to the pavement with a loud metallic clattering but Gary is unperturbed by the noise, everyone in New York City is too used to the nighttime foraging of the homeless to come charge out of their homes to investigate. Not, he reflects as he digs one dirt-encrusted hand into the piles of refuse, that there are many homes around the small city park for anyone to charge out of. Gary had lived in one of those small, shabby homes, like the park they surrounded mostly abandoned now that the plant had closed and its workers had moved on or, like Gary, been forced out onto the streets. Nothin’ I can do about that now though except keep hopin’ some fatass threw away half his big mac. He’s closing his fingers around something soggy and vaguely reminiscent of a carton of chicken nuggets when he hears a voice sounding from behind a nearby stand of scraggly trees.

“Damn girl… Taskmaster, come in, Wolfbane’s attacked without the go-ahead and is probably going to get quite a surprise unless she can get the drop on our target. Your instructions are to stay put you and your team you hear? Info on this kid says the worst he’ll do is knock her out and what’s important is to test out our strategy with Roger you hear me?”

What the hell? Potential-chicken forgotten Gary creeps towards the source of the strange commands, fingers gripping for the switchblade he’s taken to carrying since last month when those teenage punks jumped him in the subway station. As he comes around the trees all he can see is the figure’s back, a short but well built man in a black tracksuit that practically melts into the night, cut perfectly to his figure with an ease that screams tailored- and therefore money- to Gary’s eye practiced from months of snatching purses and wallets. This whole thing makes him uneasy, what on earth is some rich bastard doing playing commando in an overgrown park? I ain’t got no business finding out he decides and starts to back away as quietly as he can, a few more steps and he’ll be behind the cover of the trees again, three steps, two steps, one- crack a twig snaps under one of his feet and the figure turns, he gets a glimpse of the man’s face- Oh my God is his last coherent thought.

------

crack

Primer whirls, berating himself for his inattention and still anxious over Rahne’s deviation from the plan. Should have given her as much information as I gave Taskmaster and Ferus… no, no if she gets her ass handed to her I’ll just gently tell her that this is why she should follow my instructions, because I have the information all this passes through his mind in the instant it takes him to turn and see that the source of the noise is only a startled, scrawny, bum in his mid-thirties. Primer curls his lip in instinctual contempt- he has an ingrained disdain for those allow themselves to, well, decompose like this man while they’re till well and able- but is somewhat mollified by the way the man panics at the sight of his face, or rather his new mask. Gone is the old black-cloth shield he’d worn in the first days of concealing his identity finally replaced with a custom red-metal model with all the bells and whistles, many of them at Taskmaster’s suggestion, air filter, infra-red and heat vision, shielding eye-visor with binocular lenses, and most importantly a built in communications device. Really though it’s the mask’s face he’s most proud of, a subtle hologram makes the red-metal visage in the shape of the classic tragedy-mask from the theater seem to shift expressions from moment to moment the red chrome twisting from despair to maniacal glee to uncontrolled rage so quickly, so subtly it’s hard to be sure it’s changing at all, hard to be sure you aren’t going mad standing there looking at it. Judging from the expression on the homeless man’s face as he stands frozen the visage is having the desired effect. There might be a place for you in all this after all…

His plan for Tobias, the first of the victims of an intimidation and information gathering series of tactical operations using information from his therapy sessions with young Robert “Bobby” Drake, is relatively specific. Due to the nature of the boy’s power it would always be ideal to take him down with a bullet or tranquilizer dart from a distance but the purpose of this exercise is to devise strategies for the times when this is not a possibility- after all this boy has gone along with the team once before and might soon be a permanent member with his useful ability, there’s a good chance they’ll encounter him again- and to send a message to the Institute: We can cut down your students anywhere and any time we please. We’re not looking to kill but don’t get in our way. This is what we can do. The plan he's briefed his team-leaders (Taskmaster and Ferus if the feline decides to show, Sherridan has been granted almost complete autonomy in the new order as a reward for stepping back from his early challenges for control and it's up to him whether he comes along with the understanding that if he does he'll play by the rules) on, therefore, hinges on Manslaughter. Primer is hoping that if the young boy applies enough pain to Tobias’ mind the other boy will be unable to concentrate sufficiently to stop time or whatever it is he does and they’ll be able to make short work of him. If he does manage it he’ll have a hard time knocking out Taskmaster and even if he settles for disarming the mercenary will still be perfectly capable of disposing of him without weapons. And if all that fails plan C is tucked away somewhere safe…

But for now Rahne could use some help and so he turns to the man cowering before him, smiling under his shifting mask as he sees the gleam of a switchblade in his dirty hand and sending out rage and trust in waves.

“It’s the boy’s fault.” he whispers, “All that’s happened to you, all you’ve become, help the wolf and it’ll get better. Hurt the boy and it’ll all be like it was again.”

The bum relaxes some muscles and tenses others, going from scared to determined in a moment. He’s been looking for someone to blame. I can always stop him if he gets too rough with the boy. Not that I think he has much of a chance against him anyway...

“Go.” Primer hisses and the man charges from behind the cover of the trees, mouth open in a howl of pure rage, his own unhappiness making him all too willing to continue his anger, to believe what was suggested by Primer's pheromones even once he’s out of range as he launches himself at Tobias in unison with Rahne…

[Tobias Smith]

To say there is a disturbance in the Force would be cliche'd, but essentially true. Since that fateful mugging back in San Francisco, and just out of sheer luck, Tobias almost feels as if there is something wrong. Its no mutation, just as the fictional Han Solo would say, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

So when Tobias pauses and turns and sees both a wolf and bum with a knife in mid-air leaping toward him, instinctively his power activates, freezing the pair in mid-flight. Tobias' eyes are narrowed, and he is fairly shocked. But he also realizes that his prayers have been answered, and there is excitement again. He feels the pressure as always, but thanks to nearly daily training, he's managed to stretch a time stop to over 5 mintues. But still, he does not waste time. Before he even asks why the hell he's being attacked, he decides to kill two birds with one stone.

He quickly walks over to the bum, and prys the knife from his hand. Tobias is fairly shocked, for it is a fairly nice weapon. Stolen probably, but still useful. He has no intention of using it on the two, of course, but that does not stop him from bringing them down to ground level, and delivering several kicks to both of them to their heads, abdomins, groin and back to the bum and wolf respectively, and finally kicks under the chins. Now, normally those would not knock anyone out...but when you factor in that Tobias is wearing steel-toed boots, and he knows that neither of them will be moving for quite a while. Before allwoing time to start again, sweat forming on his brow already, he takes the soon-to-be unconscious attackers, puts the wolf ontop of the bum and pushes them off to the side of the path before releiving the pressure and allowing time to take its course.

He flinches slightly as the various bruises and bleedings form instantly on the pair, but attempts to keep his trademark apathy. But then, it dawns of him: there could be more. Immediately, Tobias holds the switchblade at the ready, and begins to look around in vain, then toward the bushes where the bum came from. The shock has not fully registered, but he spares the two attackers a glance and thinks, Owned... before yelling out to whoever could be there, "Anyone out there?! Just took down your animal and...hobo...if you want something from me, come on out!"

It then occurs to him that he should run.

[Rahne Sinclair]

The boy is unaware of her approach, and she stalks him slowly, carefully, waiting for the proper moment to strike.

At least, that’s the plan… but the plan changes when the older man whose scent she’d marked earlier comes charging through the underbrush like a drugged elephant. Even oblivious as the boy is, there’s no way he can fail to notice bumbling of that magnitude, and she discards her attempts at stealth in favor of a sudden charge.

She’s not entirely clear on what happens after that… the next thing she knows she’s recovering consciousness several meters away, her head reeling and her body aching, the bumbling fool of a wino who’d ruined her attack unconscious underneath her.

Her rage overcomes her for a moment, a feral snarl radiating from the back of her throat as she eliminates the fool with a single claw-rake from crotch to neck. She regrets the evisceration almost immediately – she’d been specifically told not to kill on this mission – but such concerns are lost in the heady smells of fresh blood and raw meat.

She’s reminded of the first time she attempted to take down a stag: she’d failed to account for how sharp his antlers were, or how powerful the muscles that carried them, and a single toss of his head had sent her tumbling down the side of a mountain, bloodied and semiconscious. She’d learned something important that day, and she realizes now that the lesson still applies when dealing with human prey – the boy seemed helpless, but clearly wasn’t.

Of course, she also remembers how she tracked that stag after she’d recovered, and the sweet, sweet taste of his liver when she finally took him down. When the day comes, boy, may yours taste as sweet.

[Primer]

"Anyone out there?! Just took down your animal and...hobo...if you want something from me, come on out!"

Primer rolls his eyes under the mask at the teenage bravado, not really giving the boy much credit for his defeat of the first two assailants. Though it appeared Rahne had been stalking instead of springing mindlessly as he’d first suspected he still doesn’t feel badly at all about sending the old wino out- she could have used his attack as an excuse to slip away and stay in position like she’d been ordered to after all instead of eviscerating him and skulking away.

“I’m going to go talk to him.” he says softly into the comm. system. “Wait a couple minutes, or until I blink out of existence or something equally dramatic, then have Manslaughter target him, as much pain as possible without killing him or ruining his mind permanently.” he finishes.

“Why yes you did.” he says calmly, responding to Tobias now and stepping out from behind the stand of trees with a supremely confident air that somehow manages to imply that he wasn’t hiding, Tobias has just been terribly unobservant. “And it looks like it tired you out a bit.” he pumps out fatigue to reinforce this idea, fairly confident that this and curiosity will keep the boy from pulling another time stop stunt. “And just what would you think we wanted from you anyway?” he asks, sounding mildly amused at the idea, he doesn't think sending a message would occur to the child and it isn’t as if he’s a likely treasure trove of secret institute information. At least not in comparison to the one that walked right into our hands he thinks with that smugly satisfied grin that can’t stay off his face when he thinks of one of the junior X-men, a temporary thorn in Magneto’s paw, coming into his office ready and willing to tell him everything he could want to know about the Institute and its inhabitants and more besides.

He glances down at his watch as if he’s impatient, two minutes have passed, Manslaughter should be getting his orders and starting in at any moment.

[Manslaughter]

Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.

..whumpf.

Scritch. Scritch. Scri-WHUMPF.

The squirrel falls off the tree for the umpteenth time with a startled trill of a squeak, flailing like a turtle on its back, movements becoming rigid and pained, a glimmer of fear reflecting from its eyes by the liquid shimmer of a park lamp post. It breathes rapidly in short, panicked gasps, going still before hopping to its feet. Ears perked it gives the surrounding area a once-over, sniffing intently and scrunching its nose. With a twitch of its tail it bounds over to the base of the tree and retrieves a fallen acorn, chewing on it incessantly and twitching every now and then in readiness.

Nothing.

Relieved, or as relieved as a furry little squirrel could be, it bounds up the side of the tree, climbing higher and higher into the boughs until it is nought but a speck of fur dashing between the limbs and leaves. The air goes still, and a chirrup of something echoes high above, followed by a crunch. The squirrel tumbles from the tree and falls immobile on the ground. It does not move again.

"Dead!" he murmurs happily to himself, rocking back and forth and nodding his head in the cloaking shadow of a large bush. Roger sighs and buries his face into his knees, rubbing until his nose and cheeks become pink from being rubbed into the rough fabric of his jeans. A suggestion of an order is murmured to him from his left. The boy. Hurt him. Roger rolls over to his hands and knees, peering between the limbs of the bush and glimpsing from afar his new prey.. not dead and certainly not running away. He roves his eyes over the eyeful of white hair, faintly remembering someone else who had it too.

He licks his lips anxiously and opens his mind, tilting his head, searching for the boy's psyche. He found it easily. "Easy as pie..," he murmurs in a sing-song voice, mentally doing an almost vulture circle around Toby's awareness. Unconciously, Roger keys into the boy's unconcious efforts, mentally giving him a hard, testing mental stab. And the does it again. ..and again. And again.

[Sherridan Kaine]

He was standing right next to young Roger when he saw the absolute humiliation the young Tobias inflicted upon the canine and the...um...Angry Hobo? Shrugging the weird additional attacker off to Primer's own mutation, he keeps sitting on the top thick branch of the tree that is right behind Roger and his bush.

>“I’m going to go talk to him.”...“Wait a couple minutes, or until I blink out of existence or something equally dramatic, then have Manslaughter target him, as much pain as possible without killing him or ruining his mind permanently.”

He hears the new boss's voice over the com system and then sees him appearing in front of Tobias. Hm...the young one has arachnophobia, but that is hardly useful at this point. Besides, he looks like the type of person who responds with rage when encountered with fear. I am sure I mentioned this to Primer at some point or another...oh well...let us wait. he thinks, somewhat glad with the agreement he and the brotherhood's new leader have made. In response to giving up the additional responsibilities of running the brotherhood, or at least not participating in the initiated fight over them, he gets free reign. He is much more free than under Magneto, who preferred not to have his subjects roam around on their own account. Then again, if Sherridan felt so inclined, he could ruin the social life of mister Garrison. After all, there were few serious businessmen or at least moderately rich people who did not have some kind of participation in Sherridan's own businesses.

He had decided to join this little escapade after getting quite upset about a few people in his favorite bar and then disposing of them quite swiftly. It is remarkable how inclined to dark places and lonely alleys humans feel. Naturally, since it was only the earliest of times of night, Sherridan was bored and out of a drinking place (because he never returns to a bar in the same night after walking out of it- the hazards of being discovered as a murderer are remarkably smaller in that way), and so he decided to help out on the sending of this message.

Two minutes passed, he sent a message to Roger, to make sure the boy heard. "OK, Roger, that boy is a toy- you can play with him, but you are not allowed to break him in any way. You want to play with him more than once, right?" he says as he sees the boy crouching down and concentrating. He is almost absolutely sure his voice will reach the boy. Somehow, it seems to make more influence on Roger than any other voices. Perhaps it is the spots.

[Tobias Smith]

>"Why yes you did. And it looks like it tired you out a bit. And just what would you think we wanted from you anyway?"

Tobias looks at the......guy...in the mask that had come out. The voice sounds familiar...maybe from that time they investigated good ol' Mr. Crispy, formerly known as Magneto. Either way, there is never a face to put to the name, and he doesn't give a fuck. He also notices that he feels tired...but that can't be right...how long had he stopped time? No more than a minute...then why is he this tired? God.......he read through some of the files...there were mutants who could do shit like this....there is something SERIOUSLY wrong here.

"Lemme see...well, I'm gonna guess that those two were the warm ups, you probably know what I do, and probably have a shit load of backup plans in case I beat your ass, and the likely X-number of others you probably brought...So...I'm gonna guess this isn't a kidnapping, because you coulda nabbed me in the club...if this was for assassination, I wouldn't be talking now would I? So...using logic here and guessing on a whim, you either want to set an example of some sort, want info from me, or send a message back to the Institute....anywhere in that neighborhood?"

Tobias is ready to 'blink' through and kick this masked-dude's ass...and probably take the mask and run. He has to admit, that is a fucking awesome mask...but still. Tobias still notes the knife he has in his hand, and looks around. Then, the pain hits.

It feels like his head is being stabbed, again...and again. The pain is like when the chopper blew, and the shrapnel flew into his legs, arms, back, and fucked him up for a few months...but this is so much worse. His skull is on fire, and he wants to die. Everything is pain, he thinks he tastes blood, but he's not sure. Adrenaline starts pouring into his system, and just by default, natures little practical joke defense mechanism kicks in.

Everything vanishes as soon as time stops. The pain, the screaming in his skull, and the thoughts of suicide. Unknown to him the pheromones are still in the air and in his system, so he still feels tired, but he opens his eyes, and pants heavily. He stumbles to regain his balance as the pain becomes a memory, and makes the decision. He readies the switchblade in his hand, and starts to look around him. He knows that he and mask-man aren't alone, so he has to find who the pain-causer is, and take him out of the picture before he pops back into reality. But still, the pressure is building, and a quick estimate is that he only has just over 3 minutes left before he either collapses, pops back instantly, or just loses it.

He leaves the path and begins searching around the bushes. He wastes a minute sprinting the perimeter looking behind bushes for the other assailant. He hits jackpot when he finds a cat-guy and a kid, nice and frozen. Judging by the almost-sneer of the older...cat...guy...thing, who he DOES recognize from the Magneto incident, it is safe to assume this is the Brotherhood. Which is cause for him to swear quite a bit as he deducts the kid is the mind fucker. He doesn't want to necessarily hurt the kid...but he remembers what he did when the military invaded. He walks around behind the kid, and delivers a hard, quick chop to the base of the kid's neck. If it works on a marine, it will work on a kid. He regrets it, but then turns his attention to the cat...guy...thing. He isn't sure WHAT to do, so he leaves him alone for now.

By this point, Tobias is sweating heavily, and panting, he's been out of pheromone range for a bit, so it is slightly easier, but now his time left is maybe a minute max. He uses his remaining energy to sprint to wards Mr. Mask. He figures the only thing he can do is grab evidence, and what better a souvenir? Tobias delivers a kick to Mask's chest and then pushes him to the ground. He then closes his eyes, and mutters a small prayer as he delivers two stabs. One in each leg. He doesn't look at the blood, but keeps the knife in case mask is some sort of knife thrower. He does his best to pry the mask from the guy, working his fingers underneath, and by the time he actually removes the fairly awesome mask and runs halfway to "his" car, time starts again, and he stumbles. His head hurts almost as much as it did when under attack, and he struggles to reach the Mustang, hop in without buckling, start it, and pull away.

He also remembers that he shoulda actually looked at the guy's face, but the mask works. Unless the bastards can stop him from driving away, he's home free.

....

...

....Oh shit.

[Rahne Sinclair]

(( OOC: Not sure if you guys had something particular in mind here… if I’m intruding on a plan, let me know and I’ll modify/delete the post. ))

Rahne isn’t entirely sure how long she was unconscious for, but as she slips stealthily away from the dead bum to regroup with her allies, she realizes their target is still active and doing better than anyone had expected.

She sees him appear from nowhere, unmarked and apparently unharmed, and when he stumbles to the ground she stifles the urge to leap upon him in that moment of weakness, remembering how he surprised her the last time. Clearly this boy can perform miracles given any warning at all; if she is going to hurt him, she will need complete surprise. So she stays in the shadows as he approaches and enters the vehicle.

Of course, she can’t let him drive away, either… their intention is to let the boy live, but letting him drive away unscathed is another matter. She has watched enough television to know about car tires, and it’s a matter of less than a second for her to bolt from cover in wolf-form, slash the car’s rear tires to ribbons with her hind paws, and return to cover… hopefully before the boy has a chance to use his strange power on her.

[Sherridan Kaine]

As every single time, the influx of changes in the surroundings as the boy leaves his time-stopped state is almost big enough to give anyone a headache, but Sherridan has learned a long time ago to adapt to new situations quickly, and, thank the gods for this, his mutation gave him all the prerequisites for fast action. This time, however, he does not need them. He is most definitely, absolutely, and completely bloody pissed that Roger was knocked out like that, but, as always, he refrains from going on a bloodthirsty rage. Instead, he just chuckles as a rather large spider crawls down his sleeve. It is considerably big, and definitely would worry anyone who did not do their research, but it is actually quite harmless. Well, to most people anyway. He stifles a laugh at how perfectly the whole thing went.

He did not plan on coming along for this trip, but when he decided that he will actually do so, he made sure he was prepared. His research on Tobias had been done a while ago, and so all he needed do was go to a friendly creepy-crawler store and buy a dozen of the largest, and most harmless, spiders they had; it worked out nicely, because the spiders he bought did not even bite that much, but rather spun lots of web, and were very similar to the size of wolf spiders or even tarantulas.

He looks over in the general direction of where Primer is, or was, and sends him a message over the link. "Let's see how my version of the message works, eh?" he says, and his smug smile is almost touchable through the link. He had recognized the registration from earlier, since the boy tended to be on the less inconspicuous side of society. So, eleven, instead of twelve, spiders are now in the car with the boy, along with a small piece of paper with a drawing of a cat's paw on it. After all, he needs to let the boy know that this was not just some random prank, and what better way to do it than an untraceable piece of paper? Thankfully, I still have the clean-freak methods of a cat, so my fingers are never greasy, and the fur takes care of the rest. There will be absolutely no fingerprints of mine in the car. he thinks, crawling down the tree to check on Roger.

[Manslaughter]

Roger's eyes glaze with excitement, watching as Tobias flinches beneath his mental prodding. He tilts his head, swallowing hard, merely watching through the filtered view of the leaves. And then he blinks, realizing with a startled murmur of something lost in his chest that his prey is gone. A tell-tale hum in the back of his mind tells him to turn, and he twists his body to the left, just as a crack of force slaps across the back of his neck. Only a gasp of air rushes from his throat, his vision blurring to distortion. He collapses without further warning into an akward heap, falling partway into the bush he'd been hiding behind.

His head swims with an echo of a throb, and Roger promptly is rendered unconcious, tension in his limbs releasing as some of the bush envelops his narrow body.

[Tobias Smith]

((Okay, I'm going to make this short because I REALLY don't want to go into details because I actually AM arachnaphobic, and would probably not be able to post...so...yeah. Mental disorders suck.))

As Tobias begins to drive away, he's surprised that he's home free. He's also semi-proud that he just took out a hobo, a wolf, a psycho-murderous kid, and a freak in a mask without any real injuries. He realizes that for once, he's gotten into a fight with his powers involved, and he didn't get hurt, beaten, or scarred physically or emotionally. But of course, he thinks too soon.

---30 seconds later---

Tobias screams, no, shrieks louder than anyone could think he could. Despite the car going fairly quickly, he literally throws the door open, and hits the ground rolling, immediately trying to get up and get rid of his coat, shirt, and using the mask as a bludgeon to get the creatures off of him, and away from him. Somehow, none are on his pants, shoes, or mask, but that does not stop him from sprinting away from the car, (which has now, being driverless, turned off the road and crashed into a tree), tears rolling from his eyes smearing the various blacks-and-whites on his face, trembling, and most likely, emotionally scarred.

---10 minutes later---

Tobias now sits, almost in the fetal position at a bus stop, despite the line not running at this time of night. He looks rather pathetic, trembling, his knees brought up to his chest, still crying, but not rocking for the mask he 'stole' is right next to him. He shudders and does his best not to sob. Gingerly, not wanting any more surprises, he reaches into his pants pocket, and pulls out his cell phone. He would have hired a cab, but his wallet and all his cash was in his coat, which was now lying in the middle of the street, next to a crashed Mustang, with a number of large spiders in the vicinity. As such, he was not going within a 3 block radius of it.

He continues trembling, as he punches in the number of pretty much the only person at the Institute he had any shred of respect for: Warren. As soon as the call connects, despite him not being sure if its the voicemail or someone picking up, he speaks, voice still trembling, Tobias doing his best not to sob.

"...W...Warren......Its Tobias....I'm.....I'm at a bus stop on...-sniffs-...31st and Main....I need a ride.....back to the Institute.....the car I took....north side of the park....I dont want to go back there...." At this point, Tobias breaks down again, sobbing lightly. "They put spiders in the car....th..they put giant fucking...spiders in the damn car.....I think I still feel them....P...Please Warren...just come get me....I'm scared...."

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren hears his phone vibrate from his pants pocket, but lets it go to voicemail while he finishes the paragraph he’s working on, wracking his brains for a suitably professional-yet-personable closing phrase for an invitation to initiate merger negotiations with a Saudi prince. He’s not unaware of the irony as he curses the exercise’s difficulty – after all, Ororo’s exercise is the same kind of thing he gives his Japanese students, to work on practical writing and speech rather than abstract exercises in vocabulary or grammar, and the same kind of thing his Japanese tutor used to give him when he was fifteen – it’s just that he’s forgotten how taxing it can be. Beats memorizing tables or irregular verbs, though.

A few minutes later he finally comes up with something suitable and saves the file. It takes him another couple of seconds to find his pants and check his messages, and then:

> " W...Warren......it’s Tobias....[..] P...Please Warren...just come get me....I'm scared...."

What the…? Warren stares incredulously at his phone, vaguely expecting it to mysteriously explode or perhaps turn into an iguana. Since when does Mr. Smith admit to being scared of anything? Spiders? 31st and Main? What in the world? And why call me? It’s obviously a trap. Except nobody makes traps that are this obviously a trap! Unless this is some kind of weird practical joke on Smith’s part… except Warren doesn’t think the kid is that good an actor.

He considers waking Josh up, just in case this is some kind of trap, but decides against it as he throws some clothes on… it had been an exhausting trip in more than one way, and a turbulent flight back from California, and Josh doesn’t have Warren’s regenerative advantages, and Warren would just as soon he not be too fatigued when he breaks the big news to his family tomorrow. So he settles for dialing the X-Men non-emergency number as he glides out the window. "This is Warren. I’m responding to an apparent emergency pickup request from Mr. Smith on 31st and Main. No obvious cause for alarm. Will check in again in ten minutes." There. Not raising a panic, but if it is a trap at least I’ll have backup. He smiles in the darkness as he climbs into an air-current that happens to be heading in the right direction… I might actually be getting good at this.

It doesn’t take very long to reach the bus stop Tobias had mentioned, and the boy’s sobbing does sound awfully sincere. Warren takes another minute or so to do a quick aerial check over the surrounding area… after all, even if he isn’t intentionally luring Warren into a trap, he might be being used as a stalking horse.

Spotting nothing amiss, Warren finally lands a few meters away from the fear-ridden boy. "It’s OK, Smith… I’m here. What’s going on?"

[Tobias Smith]

>"It’s OK, Smith… I’m here. What’s going on?"

Considering Tobias' current state, a smartass reply or finding it to be a prank would be the best case scenario. But, from the viewpoint of anyone who had ever met Tobias, seeing him as he is: wide-eyed, silent, in the fetal position, and rocking slightly, you would think that he has just stared stared directly into the face of Death, Satan, Adolph Hitler risen from the Grave, and Marilyn Manson.

For a moment, Tobias doesn't seem to register that Warren is there. In fact, his mind is attempting just to shut down to keep the paralyzing images from haunting his mind. Speaking of which, all the boy can think about, are those arachnids. The cellphone he used to make the call is still open, and looks like it just fell out of his hand as it lies there next to that taunting mask. He blinks once, very slowly, then begins to speak, just louder than a whisper, occasionally falling back into silence before forcing words out again.

"...Mutants...jumped me...a wolf, hobo, cat-guy, freak in this mask, kid who could fuck with my mind.....back at the park...I left the car...my coat....they were at the park...I fought and ran...I stole the mask...I think it belonged to the leader...the car.......they were everywhere..." At this point, his eyes become even more dialated, and he begins to tremble. "...massive...crawling everywhere....webs everywhere......on me...my clothes....my skin....crawling...........how'd they know? How'd they know.....spiders...everywhere...............the god damned......Brotherhood...

As Tobias talks, in his mind, he is reliving every terrifying second in the car. The cockiness followed by the feeling of something falling on his head, something crawing on his hand and legs....and he breaks down. He completely breaks down, beginning to sob, and bury his face in his knees. What was sitting there is not the smart-ass, gothic artist...its just the kid with arachnaphobia. Next to him, from this angle, Primer's red mask is laughing at him. Laughing at Tobias' patheticness. He might have won the physical battle, but he had been crushed in the mental battle.