13606/Unlearned Silence: An Introduction

Unlearned Silence: An Introduction
Date of Scene:	20 December 2022
Location:	Bronx
Synopsis:	When a decaying neighborhood in the Bronx falls victim to a live test of Null's, recent escapee Sundance is there to cause trouble and swear revenge. He 'meets' a mutant pitbull with red and white coloring who wrecked the place, before being called back by Null. Alopex is going to be *so mad* when she finds out.
Cast of Characters:	Kainashi, Sundance

---

Kainashi has posed:
    FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO:
    It had been a black van, slipping along the streets of a particularly decayed part of The Bronx. Brick and sandstone facade houses are crumbling, wooden houses boarded up, yards overgrown and a couple of hungry stray cats having been disturbed by a horrible parking job.

    The contents of an overloaded trashcan go everywhere, scattering McDonald's wrappers and soda cans.

    "Nice job, jerk." one guard says as they climb out of the front seats, ducking for the back holding pen.

    "So, first live test?"

    "Yeah. Never really went outside normal guard duty, you know? But the kids all want iPads this year. You know how it goes."

    "Don't I ever. Girlfriend wants one of those super expensive little dogs."

    "Oh, so not like this one?"

    "My brother in Christ--"

    Snap. An electronic hum. Eyes come into focus. The driver was shorter. Dark complexion. Smelled like he smoked. Maybe his wife smokes. He has horrible taste in deoderant either way. He's wearing the Chocolate Axe. Did they even make it any more?

    The other one was taller. She smelled like powder deodorant and old sneakers. The door opened.

    McDonalds. Hamburger. Chicken Nuggets. Old wood and cold snow and --"

    "You couldn't pay me to take this dog home."

    FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER:

    The van had a hole punched in it, and was toppled onto its side. Its back wheels had been ripped off by the axle, which was left bent around a fire hydrant, making for a spray that was lending an air of magic to the evening with a dusting of snow -- and extra danger due to the slushing ice that was forming, sharp enough to cut if you land on it wrong.

    A gas line had been blown on the other side of the street, and the impact from the rapport had cracked the supports on one of the crumbling houses.

    The guard and the driver were nowhere to be seen, but sirens wailed in the distance as another ancient vehicle goes flying into the air, striking powerlines and threatening to darken larger sections of the Bronx!

Sundance has posed:
You know, Sundance hadn't really had any intentions of getting into a fight tonight, or he would have probably bought more guns. He'd mostly been planning on looking for signs of Null activity, to follow up on a report from Pete the other night. Then again he wasn't sure if Pete actually even knew what Null was.

So when the gas line explosion had happened, well, needless to say his attention was moved from trying to look for Null to finding out what in the hell is going on.

He'd taken to the rooftops, and came skidding to a stop above the street where the van was laying on its side. There was glass everywhere across the street from shattered windows after the explosion, and he could see the damaged house as well. He tilted his hat upwards, as he looked down across the street, just in time to see a vehicle sail through the air and take out the powerlines, "Well shit. I ain't gettin' paid to fight the Hulk."

Kainashi has posed:
    Weirdly, this was Serendipity.

    Except with a creature that was bowed over slightly, canine legs curled, tail pinned firmly. Its arms were up and over its head, ears pinned with some kind of hood about its head. Its boxy muzzle was scarred and raw from the cold, a new split in red noseleather showing. It was wearing a non-descript armored vest -- at least they cared about anyone shooting it.

    Its black leggings appear to be hooked up to different wires, some of which aren't connected to their do-dads anymore. IT's breathing heavily.

    And it's much... much smaller than the HUlk

Sundance has posed:
"It's..A mutant?" He asks, as he takes a knee on the roof and pulls out his rifle, looking through the scope at the creature, "I got a bad feeling about this." He growls, as he drops the rifle back over his back into the holster there, and then hops off the roof, grabbing a ledge and dropping down.

His jacket flutters in the wind as he drops down into the street proper. He's armed, but he holds his hands up to show the canine that he's not hostile, "Easy there. Easy. I ain't gonna hurt you."

He does a quick assessment of the area, noting the sirens rapidly approaching. Cops will definitely not be something he wants to deal with, "I get a feelin' like you don't wanna be out here, and I'm more than willing to help you get outta here. But you gotta calm down."

Kainashi has posed:
    The creature turns, dark eyes unfocused in its scarred-up face, arms giving shadow, but the eyeshine comes back towards Sundance.

    There's a silent snarl, a baring of teeth before it steps forward, lightly, its mass not congruent witht he size of the figure.

    A Canine.

    A red-and-white pitbull.

    It steps forward, and grabbing a pipe that once transported gas and still reeked of its additive, she slings it at Sundance hard enough to make her turn, showing a red Zero on her side.

    A Null.

Sundance has posed:
The coyote, for his part, was at least trying to do what he could to help someone he thought might have been in the same situation he had been until the lioness and fox had shown up on his proverbial doorstep.

The pipe hits him in the side as he turns to try to evade it, but he catches sight of that symbol as he does so. There's an audible whine as the pain from the hit surges through him, the vest absorbing the majority of the hit but knocking the wind out of him.

He jumps backwards after the hit, skidding back a few feet from the force of the impact, "I've been where you've been! Where those bastards take you out, force you to do what they tell you!" He calls out to her, keeping his hands up but dropping back into a defensive stance so he can try to evade any more strikes, "If any of them are standing I'll put a bullet in them myself. I can help you out!"

Kainashi has posed:
    There's no vocal response from the creature, dark eyes not registerring the words.

    She takes up another piece of pipe, and baring her teeth again the Null mutant doesn't hold back this time -- she swings with enough force to break bones, planing her feet solidly to offset the push of the ill-matched mass and strength.

    "Get Away from it!" comes a shout far to the end, hiding behind a dislodged dumpster!

    "They're trying to reconnect the signal but it WILL kill you -- if we don't!" one of the guards has popped their helmeted head out, and one shakes their electric-slug throwing rifle.

    They don't want to try and take her on either!

    However, she is still swinging for the coyote like she's trying to try out for the Mets!

Sundance has posed:
That sounds like one of the Null troops. Great. Sundance resists the urge to shoot the owner of that voice behind the dumpster, as he again ducks backwards, using his smaller size to keep out of reach, scrambling backwards, "You better undo whatever the hell you bastards done did, you hear me!?" He calls back out to that voice, "Else it'll be me killin' ya!"

He might still do it anyway, depending on his mood. And right now his mood isn't a good one, as he hops over the hood of a car, sliding along it before he ducks for cover.

Kainashi has posed:
    Null troops are afoot.

    Don't shoot the owner of the voice. It's the nice guy with the kids who just wanted to get them iPads!

    "Jesus, you think we'd be out here with stun guns if we could UNDO that shit?!" the woman calls out from the other side of the dumpster. "Connection will be restablished in a minute! Just gotta keep it contained until then!"

    Better you then them, unfortunately, Sundance. The mutant is pursued, the short behemoth stepping lightly, leaning down and reaching under the car, and with a soft grunt it goes to just lift up the car in order to get to Sundance, reaching out for him!

Sundance has posed:
Sundance doesn't think this'll work, but he's going to try it anyway, as he ducks out of the way of the hands reaching for him as the car gets moved. He scrambles along the pavement a few feet, as he digs through the satchel on his left side, pulling out a length of rope.

Whipping around with it, he throws the lasso end of the rope towards the canine that's trying to get at him, trying to snag one of its feet with the rope and hope he can trip it up. Bringing it down off it's feet will at least help him.

"Sorry for this." He says to the dog, as he pulls hard on the lasso to try to snare her and pull her off the ground for a moment. He's fully expecting to feel it pull tight and her not move an inch, no matter how strong he is compared to a normal person, it's clearly got him outmatched.

Kainashi has posed:
    The canine pauses its reaching for Sundance, the car over its head with one hand gripping into the frame, bending the steel as her eyes come into sharp focus on Sundance.

    And then look down, where the lasso end of the rope tightly catches around her ankle, and Sundance uses her own ill-matched mass against her:

    He pulls her leg out from under her, causing her to tilt backwards, and with a loud SLAM! the car comes down on top of the small, hooded figure!

    "This is Detail Seven. The Dog is down. How long until reset?"

    Kzzht!

    "Ten seconds!"

Sundance has posed:
The coyote quickly hops up on top of the car, sliding over it and pulling the rope down over it, using the bit attached to her leg to help keep her off balance and maybe help pull the car down on her, "I dunno if ya can hear me in there, but I WILL get you outta this."

No way is he gonna let Null control any mutants he can possibly rescue. But he also knows that they kept him under control with an electric and explosive collar, and he broke out, so whatever THIS is, it might be his fault. And that ain't gonna stand.

Kainashi has posed:
    There's an electric whine, like an old TV coming to life. The car shakes a moment, shudders, and then slowly draws up and is set politely to the side.

    "Affirm; Dog is leashed." one of the guards speaks up. The other has her gun trained on the coyote as the pitbull slowly makes its way. It's visibly limping, but other than that shows no sign of any outward distress and just seems... tired.

    MEanwhile, the car creeeaaaks, and then its ties all break down, and it settles on its rims.

    And then its car alarm goes off, lights flashing, horn honking, the whole nine yards, illuminating Sundance nicely.

Sundance has posed:
Sundance hops out of the way once the car is up and off of her, unhooking his lasso and putting it back in the pouch. He clocks the gun aiming at him, frowning faintly. Hard to outdraw someone who's already got you in their sights, "What in the hell are y'all doing out here? I'm gonna get me some answers one way or another."

The alarm going off makes his ears fold back against his hat, bringing a hand up to block the light, but the coyote is definitely visible to the woman with the gun trained on him now, light up like a Christmas tree.

Kainashi has posed:
    At least no one wants a Hippopotamus for Christmas tonight.

    "WE don't have to answer to no mutie scum!" the woman calls out at Sundance -- and that's when more vans start showing up. Lights start coming on.

    Sundance was about to be in a very Target Rich environment.

Sundance has posed:
The issue with a target rich environment is that when most of the targets have guns, the targets like to shoot back. And Sundance knows he's good, but these guys have some kind of remote control over that mutant, and he's not willing to hurt her.

He's been in her shoes.

"Alright, here's the deal. I'll admit ya got me outgunned. But this ain't the end. I am gonna gonna get her outta Null's control. Just you wait."

He decides to steal one of Alopex's moves as he throws a small smoke grenade to the ground at his feet, using the distraction to slip into a manhole cover that was dislodged by the explosion. He's gotta get back to base and find Sally.

Kainashi has posed:
    "Live Test complete. Ran into one of our Subjects."

    "Roger. Next time we take The Dog out for a walk, we'll have a better area."

    The van is loaded up with the compliant mutant canine, and the two guards (who are told they'll get hazard pay) are set in a different vehicle -- and soon after Null exits, the police and fire department finally make it to the area, to shut down gas lines and set up a perimeter.

    There would be no indication after a few days that there was even a fight here; they're getting That Good.