187/To Kill A Mockingbird

To Kill A Mockingbird
Date of Scene:	29 February 2020
Location:	Subway Car
Synopsis:	Sanjeev witnesses men who terrorized a mutant family get confronted by Kitty Pryde in the subway as they go to leave
Cast of Characters:	Kitty Pryde, Sanjeev Bassi

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Kitty Pryde has posed:
The subway train pulled into the station below Bushwick. At this time of night on a weeknight it would be far less populated. But on a Friday night, with the weather having turned just a little bit warmer, a lot of people are out and about. Clubs and bars up on the streets are hopping, or people are hanging outside on fire escapes and stoops and stairs, talking with their neighbors. Usually with a little alcohol on hand, because while it's warm for New York at the end of February, it's still New York in February.

The subway car lurches to a halt and a few people depart, others get on. A group of four young men rush in ahead of the doors stopping. They are in their late teens to early twenties from the look of them. One of them has a bottle in brown paper in hand. Even as they enter they are behaving in a boisterous fashion.

"Holy shit, I never seen a pane of glass that big shatter like that. It was like poetry!" one of them says to the group. Another slaps another on the chest and says, "Shit yeah. Always wanted to kick a door like that too." Another laughs at the second. "Took you like a half dozen tries to kick it open though!" The second protests. "Hey, I didn't know how hard you had to do it! Get off me!" The fourth just shakes his head and says, "Fucking mutants. Wish we could have done more. Hearing 'em in there was worth it though, wasn't it?" Another makes a fist and the two young men fist-dap.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    In an alcove between the incoming and outgoing tracks, Sanjeev slumped against the concrete wall supported by a dark gloved hand. Jet black locks of hair spilled over his domino mask as his head hung, trying to fight the waves of nausea that threatened to overtake him. Today's experiment was testing different hypotheses to extend the effective range and accuracy of where he arrived from the fourth dimension when he "walked." Unfortunately, while he had started growing accustomed to the nausea that assaulted his body when he did so usually, the repeated "walks" that testing multiple hypotheses required was starting to take its toll on his body. Taking a deep breath, the black hybrid armor on his torso visible under his open black long coat creaked slightly in protest to his lungs filling.

    Finally composing himself, he glanced at a train car as it flew by, the wind it generated throwing the hem of his coat backward. Now, this was going to be the hard part. He needed to figure out how to accurately pinpoint "walking" into a moving vehicle, but time between the third and fourth dimension was constantly disjointed. Which meant he had to do a complex equation on the fly to make sure he was going to come out in the right place. Tapping a booted foot against the concrete wall to let the nerves out of his body, he waited and watched for a train that had less people in it to worry about.

    He could see the insides of the trains as they came with his fourth dimensional sight. But, it was a matter of being able to make the jump correctly.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Within the subway car, one or two people glance over towards the four youths. Faces showing disapproval, but not so openly as to present a challenge. If they had done as they claimed, and with that bottle being passed around, each taking a drink, the chance of an incident is too great for anyone to make their glare too long lasting.

The warning the doors are closing comes and they slide to, sealing the passengers into the car. A figure might be seen rushing down the stairs onto the subway platform, but clearly the person is too late. Even as they dart for the next car back on the train, the doors there are closed as well.

"I just wish there was footage of the muties roasting," one of them says as he takes the bottle, downing a full shot's worth of the whiskey it contains. "The smoke rising up was nice, but it would have been a better message if the rest saw it happen."

Another of the youths lets out a laugh. "Yeah. Well, we got 'em on the run now. They know they aren't welcome. Just gotta get them out this city." Another says, "Hell ya!" loud enough to draw a few looks, but the people look away when he glances towards them.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    As another train car came flying toward him, Sanjeev peered into its depths. There were plenty of cars that had people in them, but there was one toward the back of the train that seemed to have less people inside it. He could afford not to draw too much attention to himself there. Even though he was wearing clothes that would obscure his identity, the young Indian man disliked drawing attention to himself just as much as he disliked confrontation and conflict. The less people there were, the less they would ask questions and just chalk up what he was doing to yet another superhero of sorts. The less questions he got, the better.

    Taking a deep breath, he tapped his right foot against the ground, trying to get a better estimate of the train's speed from the interval he was marking. If his calculations were correct, the spot he was looking for in the train car he was looking at would end up...twenty-four meters past him. The time for hesitation had passed. Exhaling, he took one step forward...

    ...and out of reality.

    Once again, he found himself in inky blackness with no body. Thankfully, he had no body to freeze up from the terror he intially felt. After all, being trapped in a space like this for months of one's life was likely to leave scars on one's psyche. Interconnecting pathways of light stretched out before him and he willed himself forward, using his special sight to find the correct pathway he needed until he reached the offshoot he was looking for and he stepped back into reality, appearing in the train car from nothingness.

    Immediately, Sanjeev lost his balance and stepped forward unsteadily and thrust out palm of his hand against the train wall to make sure he didn't fall. There were only a few people in the train car as he had planned. Glancing at his surroundings, he sighed when he looked at the spot he had arrived at. Two feet off his planned entry point. It appeared there was a coefficient in his calculations he had not accounted for.

    Wrinkling his brow, he could hear the yells from the next car over above the roar of the train in the subway. Taking the few steps toward the door between the cars, he looked through the window. Someone should stop these people. Unfortunately, it would not be him.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
The four young men pass the bottle between them, each taking his turn downing a swig of the liquid that adds some liquid fire to the bellies. "I bet those kids you could hear ain't going to be sleeping so soundly tonight. Or for a long time." Another of the young men does a hard arm bump with him as if in salute.

At the opposite end of the subway car, the far end from where Sanjeev is at, the door doesn't make any sound. It doesn't even open to draw anyone's attention. No one else in the car notices that one minute no one was there. The next there's a young woman in a brown leather jacket and blue jeans. She reaches up towards the small camera in the corner of the car, waving her hand towards it as if she's going to slap it, but her hand just continues the wave. Maybe it didn't contact it.

The young woman looks in her late teens. Brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail. Pretty and fit, but with a stern look on her face. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy," the girl says loudly enough her voice can even be heard faintly through the door by Sanjeeve, though cracking the door open would help him hear better.

"They don't eat up people's gardens," she says as she walks forward in a deliberate stalk towards the four young men, each of whom must outweigh her by 80 pounds or more. "Don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird," she says as she walks up to them.

"That little girl you made scream and cry? She sings like you'd never believe. Makes you feel her music. See it. And you just sent her towards nightmares for days. Why? Because you're a bunch of prejudiced bigots who can't stand anyone being different than you."

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    As the young woman appeared in the car, confusion crossed Sanjeev's face. Wait, what? How? Even peering into the fourth dimension as he was, he did not see her until she was suddenly there! Had he missed something? Some detail or flaw in his ability? But, he had practiced with his sight for months initially just to make sure he understood it well enough because it was the only guide he had while walking through the fourth dimension. If he hadn't learned it, he would have been trapped there for even longer than the few months he had been. Was there some flaw in it that he had missed?

    Hearing a muffled feminine voice from beyond the door, Sanjeev cracked the door between the cars in order to hear what was going on as the young woman approached the four men. Was she insane? They were bigger than her! And even if she did managed to beat them, the police would rule it as her fault for instigating the violence! The four men weren't attacking her! She couldn't even claim self-defense!

    Still, the young Indian man could not tear his eyes away from the scene unfolding before him. She had his rapt attention.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
The young man nearest to the brunette has a black stocking cap on. He's wiry with a pointed jaw, and tall. He straightens up to his full height, arms puffing out to either side in that way some men have to try make themselves look more muscular and intimidating. "Bitch, you better take your mutant-loving ass and step back," he tells her, taking a step towards him.

The young woman looks up at him, easily giving up seven or eight inches to the man. "Or what? You going to throw a brick at me like you did the window? You had an arm that couldn't make a 12 year old girl's softball team. Is this how they raise you racists these days? I guess they won't let assholes like you even participate on a sports te-"

Her word is cut off as the young man hauls back his fist and punches her square in the face. Or it looks like that's what is happening, it is a little hard for Sanjeeve and even the other young men to see with him in the way. There's a clanging metallic sound and the young man is soon holding his fist. "Ah! Shit! It's broken! What the hell!"

The young woman steps forward, away from the metal pole that was right behind her. "Tell me he's not your leader, guys. Can't even punch a girl without missing," she says. The other three men look angry and start to crowd around her on three sides, one of them holding the bottle like he intends to use it as a club.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    Missed her? Had he really? With his sight gazing through the fourth dimension, the train car before him as well as the area surrounding him was being viewed as if it were a flat map laid out to his eyes. With the metallic clanging sound her heard of the man's fist hitting the metal pole behind the young woman, that seemed to stand to reason. But even with the drinking that the four men were participating in, would he really have missed a swing that close? While he couldn't put his finger on it, something about this situation seemed...off. How quickly she had appeared and now this man hitting the pole next to her. He had guesses, but he needed more solid evidence.

    Though, now that the young woman was being surrounded by them, it seemed he would not get that chance. Especially if that one with the bottle got a solid shot in. While he wasn't about to come out and physically assault the men, he felt a pang of...conscience? about them using a weapon against her. All it would take was one shot with that bottle to effectively brain her and give her an Epidural Hematoma. Blood hemorrhage in the brain could kill her.

    It appeared that he would have to go into the next phase of testing early.

    Taking a deep breath to center himself, he extended a hand toward the door and began rapid mental calculations to figure out where the bottle would be in space when the man swung it at the young woman's head. When he did so, he would find that the bottle would disappear completely as Sanjeev sent it into the fourth dimension--still in existence, but not interactable by people still in this plane. Hopefully, the young woman wouldn't get beaten too badly.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
As the three men still not bent over clutching a broken hand surround her, the brunette teen just stares at them defiantly. The lack of any signs of being intimidated seems to upset them as much as anything, as if their manhoods were being called into question, and that proves enough to set them off.

One in the middle throws a haymaker at her head. With Sanjeeve's extra-spatial view it must look like it passes right through her head, on its way to hitting his buddy over on his left. "AH! What the hell!" that man yells as he covers his eye that just got punched.

The man on the right with the bottle has it by the neck and swings it overhand towards the girl's head. She does move her heard to the side, but then suddenly the bottle is gone from the man's hand, which just swings through the air missing her entirely.

That seems to surprise the girl for the moment, but the first one to attack her doesn't wait. He lunges at her to tackle her. The girl sidesteps him and grabs hold of him to throw him in the direction he was lunging, adding extra speed so when he rams into a pole face first, he goes down hard.

The young man on the left who got hit in the eye kicks at her leg, but his foot somehow misses though it looked like he was definitely going to nail her in the shin. She turns back towards him, grapping his shoulders and pulling him down to meet her knee on the way up. He gets laid out, falling over backwards, out cold. Leaving one man on his feet, the one missing the bottle.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    Sanjeev couldn't help but wince every time the young woman struck one of the men. Of course, he also flinched the first time it seemed like she was about to get hit. But, after the first blow passed through her body, he came to expect that the others would as well. And considering that three of the four men were nursing various types of injuries, it appeared that she had the situation well in hand. Unarmed as he was, her opponent would likely stand no chance at all.

    Breathing a sigh of relief, it appeared that at least the danger had passed for now and all that was left was the clean up. From where he stood behind the door to the subway car she was in, he would likely be visible from the window in the door. But, he doubted that anyone would be looking at him. Their eyes would likely be glued to the spectacle unfolding before them just like his would have been if the did not have vision that extended all around him.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
The young woman eyes the final man, who even if he doesn't really know how it happened, is a little freaked out that this 115 pound girl has just taken down three of his friends, some of them without even seeming to have hardly moved. He finally holds up his hands even as the young woman is lifting an arm as if she might hit him.

Her hand trembles like she's having to fight to hold it back, and then finally she gets a look of disgust and lowers her arm. "Professor will probably already be pissed," she says cryptically. She instead waggles her index finger at the man. "This isn't the Dream. Hatred just causes more hatred. When the hell are people like you going to learn that," she says, visibly fuming.

She steps forward, the man on his feet backing up, and she reaches around behind him. It might look like she reached through him, even, though it was fast, and her hand comes back with his wallet in it. She opens it up. "Brad. Brad Speeker. 1125 Hempstead Road, New York. Alright Brad, here's what's going to happen. There's going to be a sum of money or a check, a VERY generous check, left for that family in the next two hours. Enough to pay for the damage, and a letter apologizing. Or else the police will know exactly where to come to talk to Brad Speeker and his buddies. Am I understood?"

Brad nods his head. "Yeah. Ok." The fit young woman nods then and turns, walking a few steps away, stepping over one of the men who is lying on the ground holding his face. She stops and turns back. "And buy the kids a present. Something to make them feel better," she says. "It's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

She turns and walks off, opening the door to the final car, passing through, and closing it behind her.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    After the young woman closed the door behind her, Sanjeev let go of his hold on the bottle in the fourth dimension and it reappeared in reality once again in the same exact position it had been in when the man had been swinging it minus its inertia. It dropped to the floor and shattered as if to emphasize the young woman's words.

    The young Indian man stood where he was behind the door to the previous car and thought for a few moments. His mind rapidly began to work as he took in everything he had seen of the situation: her body posture on intial contact with the four men, the rapid manner in which their interaction rose to confrontation and finally conflict, the scale down that occurred when it seemed she was listening to her better angels that meant she was not usually this angry of a person. Combining that with the fact that she had special abilities of some sort. And she did all of this because these men had harrassed a young girl. And these men were obviously mutant-haters. But, even so, she did not seem like she would have escalated otherwise. What could have driven her to such lengths? The realization came to him all at once.

    Genosha.

    With a sigh, Sanjeev opened the door to the car where the conflict had occurred and strode forward, his black long coat swaying as he did so. His black leather boots crushed the remnants of the shattered glass underfoot as he ignored Brad and headed for the door to the next car. Heroes, the young Indian man didn't understand. The ones he had seen were incredibly violent. But, emotional pain? That was something he did. It was enough to bring him out into the open in a train car full of people. Hopefully, they wouldn't remember him in too much detail. Sliding open the door to the last car, he entered amid the cacophany of train noises outside before it closed behind him. Striding slowly toward where the young woman was seated, he eased himself gently into the seat next to her.

    "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked gently, keeping his eyes forward. It was a simple statement and an olive branch for conversation with no judgment attached to it.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde found a seat by herself at the very back of the train. Sitting in it bent forward, elbows resting on her knees, her head down as it rests in her hands.

The sound of someone approaching down the car did causes her to peek up, to assure herself it isn't one of the men from the other car whose ego was too bruised to stand down. Seeing that isn't the case, Kitty rests her head back down until she realizes the approaching person is sitting next to her.

She sits upright and looks over to Sanjeev. Eyeing his outfit and the domino mask, she lifts one eye brow slightly until he speaks. After, Kitty gives a small shake of her head. Her voice is low on emotion, as if drained of it now the anger she held has faded. "Not much to say. They terrorized a family. Just because of what they are."

Maybe there's more to say. From her expression and demeanor part of her seems to regret what she did. But only part of her, perhaps.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    "Yes, I heard," the young Indian man replied, easing his back into the chair as his shoulders swayed slightly back and forth from the natural movement of the train. "But, you don't seem like the kind of person that would go to war over that. From your actions at the end, it seems like you are someone that learned restraint. Though, I don't know who Professor is or what Dream you were referring to. I can only imagine that you may be having a harder time because of...current events."

    He let the words hang on the air for a moment, deciding that it was better not to mention Genosha by name. But, Sanjeev turned toward her finally, his brown eyes behind the domino mask searching out hers.

    "I know it may not mean much for you to hear right now, but not all of us hate you," he said warmly, the right corner of his mouth quirking upward in a reassuring half-smile. "You aren't alone."

    She didn't need to hear that his father hated superheroes or that he himself didn't trust them. Right now, he knew she was a person who didn't know where she belonged in a world that probably hated her. And being lost was something he understood better than most. If he could give her some sense of comfort, that might make not sticking to the shadows for his own safety worth it.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
The young woman sits quietly for a few moments, staring ahead of herself rather than looking at Sanjeev, though it's clear she is listening to him. Her jaw works a little bit as the masked Indian man mentions her possibly having a harder time because of current events.

The teen's brown eyes study the air in front of her for a few moments before finally she says, "My father died on that island. Friends of mine died there. And they were celebrating it, by terrorizing a family with two small children."

She looks away. Rather than anger or the other emotions one might expect, there is as much embarrassment as anything else. As if she's not proud of what she did with those men. Even if they obviously deserved it.

The train goes through a stretch where the lights go out, the train swaying, then they come back on. Up ahead is another stop. There aren't too many other people in this particular car. The train pulls into the station and the doors open up. Through the windows, the four young men can be seen leaving, one of them helping the one whose face rammed into the pole.

They spot the girl, and she spots them as well. She stares them down and they all look away before turning to head towards the stairs that lead up and over the tracks, towards the line that heads the opposite direction, back towards Bushwick.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    "I'm...really sorry to hear that," he replied softly, his gaze tilting slightly toward the floor. He left his hand at his side next to his leg with the palm upward in case she wanted to take it for emotional support. It was an offer for comfort that was not as intrusive as placing a hand on her shoulder. He wanted to make sure she felt like she had a choice in it and that it wasn't thrust upon her.

    There was so much pain and suffering in the world. Had his father been right? Had he been selfish by not becoming a physician as well? But, if he had not pursued theoretical physics, he may not be sitting here right now. Though, what /was/ he doing here? Containing the abilities thrust on him so that they did not cause massive harm to a populace? He wasn't a hero. Right now, he was a glorified thermonuclear device. Or worse.

    "I won't do you the disservice of platitudes like "they're in a better place now" or anything of the sort," he continued after pausing to take a breath to absorb the emotion of the moment. "Death of friends and family are the hardest things in life to bear. The best advice I can give is it will take time. Let it."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
The doors close and the train pulls forward again. Kitty watches until the men can't be seen anymore. She shakes her head and then turns back towards Sanjeev. She doesn't take his hand, but does take in the sight of his outfit. "Sorry if I don't recognize you. I've been out of the country for awhile. Are you a hero?" she asks him.

The young woman makes note of his costume so she can look him up online later. Or add a sketch to the X-men's database. "Probably shouldn't have rammed the one into the pole so hard," she says quietly, shaking her head as if upset at herself. Even as she is though, her hands clench, the opposite of feeling bad about what happened to the man. Clearly conflicting feelings are there within the young woman.

"Are you a metahuman?" she asks. "Was that you with the bottle? It disappeared from his hand suddenly," she says, having noted that during the fight, but not let it distract her from dealing with the matter.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    The young woman's inquries were met with a wry smile. "A hero?" he asked rhetorically with a bit of humor in his voice. "I certainly hope not. The last heroes I met a few days ago were breaking people's arms and restricting me against my will to falsely interrogate me. With some strange tentacle things." He shook his head to dispel the thought as his body shivered with the recollection. Inky black, gooey things. Chalk that up to one of the most uncomfortable experiences he had ever had in his life.

    "No, I'm just a person trying to make sense of something that happened to him," he continued, glancing sidelong at the young woman with a small laugh. "Something happened a couple years ago, and I found myself with an ability of sorts outside of the scope of the norm. I just made the bottle, in layman's terms, not able to be interacted with by people. It ceased to exist to the experience of all three-dimensional creatures. After you left, it came back, by the way."

    Pausing for a moment, he looked up at the ceiling. "It did make a bit of a mess on the floor. I do feel bad for that."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty eyes Sanjeev quietly as she listens, reading his expressions and voice as much as his words. "It isn't all it's cracked up to be. So that's maybe not a bad idea," she comments to him. Kitty looks away. Though she'd not have chosen any other way, would she have? She'd fought against being sidelined to the team of trainees.

She eyes him some more as Sanjeev describes what he went through. "Not moving to another dimension, but... transitioning into an extra-dimensional space?" she asks. The former she knows about. Does she ever. The stains of Limbo are still there in her soul, always ready to affect her if she let them.

"Well, they didn't need to drink more, so you probably did them a favor. And thank you for the assistance," she tells him. The girl's eyes flit over towards the map showing the train's next destinations. "They have enough lead. I should head back to make sure they make amends," she says, rising to her feet.

Sanjeev Bassi has posed:
    The young woman's comment on the state of heroism caused a smile to spread across Sanjeev's face. "So I've been told," he replied with a small laugh. "It also seems like anyone can call themselves that these days. I haven't seen one that truly walks the walk." Hell, Kitty was probably the only one that he had seen that might actually /be/ hero material and she was emotionally unbalanced enough at the moment to have picked a fight with four human-supremacists on the subway.

    Now, how to explain the ability while still be vague enough that letting out the information wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass later? While she seemed nice enough, Sanjeev didn't know her. "Basically, I can cross the boundary of three-dimensional space into the fourth-dimension," he stated simply while not going into specifics on how the powers work exactly. "So, when I use it, I'm both here...and not."

    Placing his hands on his knees, the young Indian man sighed and rose to his feet before patting down the back of his long coat around his legs to make sure he hadn't wrinkled it while he sat. "Well, be careful on your way, though with the way you handled yourself against those four I doubt you'll need my wellwishes, Spitfire," he said with a wry smile, giving her a nickname since they had not introduced themselves. He knew better than to inquire about her name since she had displayed abilities openly, and he was not someone with a moniker to go with his mask. Slowly walking forward, he kept his gaze ahead of him as he gave her a two-finger salute. "Maybe I'll see you around sometime." One more step and he vanished completely. There was no telltale smoke or any sort of visual effect to emphasize the point.

    While she could probably end up with a sketch of him, it would be highly difficult to track down who Sanjeev was. He had made sure not to really go out of his way to help anyone at all. Discretion was the name of his game. After all, he was just a scientist trying to understand the changes that his body was undergoing. There had been no need to draw attention to himself to save anyone. Until today.