Narrative/Thread: Beast Who: Hank McCoy (previously the Friends of Humanity, now open to Jean-Paul Beaubier and anyone who might happen to be in Salem Center) When: Morning, December 21, 2007 Where: Salem Center's town square What: Hank went on errands and it turns out he should have slept in today. Jean-Paul has asked to come along, but because I had much of this written already and didn't want to slow it down with a thread (since JP would definitely stop the FOH if he was around), I've made the assumption that they split up about half an hour ago to go separate ways while Hank did a little Christmas shopping for him.
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They stopped him first with a shot to the back of the thigh.
Hank had been walking down the near-deserted town square, which was peaceful and idyllic in all the snow. Salem Center was just starting to get up and running again, some places deciding to operate without power, some places managing to petition the new regime in order to get it. Life wasn't as it should be, but errands could be run, people could live in their homes... it really didn't seem so bad sometimes. He'd come out and spent the morning with Jean-Paul, sharing breakfast at Simone's, running a few errands like a run to the grocery store for Molly's Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs and other essentials. Stopping to drop bags off at the car, Hank had then confessed that Jean-Paul was going to have to leave him and keep himself busy somewhere else. Part of Hank's "errands" included fetching a present for Jean-Paul, and while he wanted his friend along for the trip, he didn't want him along for when he chose a Christmas gift. Shooing him off had probably been his worst decision in months.
He barely heard the gunshot, followed by a cold, tingling feeling in the back of his thigh as it started to feel heavy, like dead weight. He barely had another chance to look around for the source of it before another bullet slammed into the muscles of his right shoulder. He knew the general direction of where the bullets were coming from, and for a man his size and strength, a couple of gunshot wounds wasn't enough to down him. Limping, he was practically crawling on all fours, with blood soaking the white sweater and tan trousers he wore.
And then they were on him like a swarm, coming out of nowhere, not giving a damn if anyone saw them. Hank noticed that three of them seemed to be leading the way before a baseball bat was slammed into the side of his face so hard that it broke, knocking off his glasses to be trampled underfoot.
Hank was a trained fighter, a strong athlete, but in order to gain enough momentum to really do anything, he needed space, and they weren't giving it to him. Every time he threw someone off, there was another to take his place. He managed to swing out his arms, knocking a couple of them back with violent blows, but he was hurt and confused and they clearly seemed to have a definite plan in mind. They had chains with hooks on the end, and when it seemed like it would be impossible to simply tie him up, they dug the hooks into his flesh and tugged. Anything to bring him to his knees, anything to weaken him so they could chain him up to one of the lamp posts in the town square. He fought, he fumbled for his cellular phone, he knew that he'd managed to wound one of them, but it wasn't enough. The cold metal of the post was up against his chest, someone was using a crowbar to hold his neck down and shove his face against it while----hn. Something wet and cold and uncomfortable started to soak into his sweater, into his fur. It was a smell he recognized, and when he heard the flick of a lighter, his heart skipped a beat in panic.
"No!"
No one felt like listening. The flame caught immediately, spreading like wildfire and Hank screamed. The struggle caused the hooks to drag through muscle, caused the lamp post to bend and then break.
His assailants were gone almost as quickly as they'd arrived, except for one, who was spelling GET OUT OF OUR TOWN in red paint on the ground.