Re: Meatpacking District - Jason/Gwen/Hulk
[As soon as the fire broke out, Jason wanted to go. They needed to get somewhere safe, and staying in a place where Gwen kept randomly adjusting the physical reality was making him a couple different kinds of nervous. Add a fire in a high rise on top of that, and he felt nothing but relief when she popped back out with the awkward bulge of a gun in her back pocket.] Safety better be on that thing. [It was a halfway tease, but not by much. The sounds coming from the attack outside were no joke, and he was itching to get down there. She needed to get somewhere safe, and if he had the chance to cut his way through some of the forces attacking the city, all the better.]
Cows it is, then. [He led down through the stairs in semi-darkness. The emergency lighting had come on in the smoky stairwell, and the steps felt like half an eon down. Past the smoldering first floor, he called back.] Cover your face with your shirt. [For his part, he slipped the blood red helmet back on, letting the filter in the mouthpiece do the work and the glass keep the smoke from stinging too badly.
By the time they hit the ground floor, the sounds coming from outside had reached an unholy pitch. Breaking glass, screaming, the grunts and screeches of active battle. It smelled like burnt hair and dust, even through the mask.
He had his gun out before they pushed through the front doors, and good thing, too. A pair of monsters half again his size came up from behind them, one with a rifle out of a sci-fi movie, the other with a heavy, curved blade.
He moved quickly, backing up and grabbing Gwen's arm to make sure she wasn't in the line of fire before firing off four quick shots into the one with the rifle. While it looked more like a lizard than a person, the bullets did their job just fine once they punctured the plate of its rudimentary helmet. This mess was making him glad he'd kept hollow points on his belt, for just such a happy occasion.] Setting cars on fire and smashing convenience store windows. Did nobody tell you guys there wasn't a game today?
[The second one came swinging, but two shots in each double jointed knee made it hit the ground growling and snarling. He dragged Gwen on before it had the chance to flip those wicked legs around.] Let's go.
[It wasn't exactly a cakewalk getting to the meatpacking district. He emptied one gun and replaced it with a knife, saving the rest of his ammunition for later. He could cut a path easily enough just by being and moving quickly with a gun in his hand, one of the side benefits of looking like he could be with the good guys or the bad ones. There wasn't really time for conversation, except 'duck' and 'watch out' and 'run'. He cut the legs out from under a pair of mostly humanoid guys with gas masks on, who were too busy loading an elderly couple into a transport pod to see him coming up behind. He saved most of the murderous heroics, though. They needed to stay moving.
It took far longer than it should have to make it to the meatpacking district, and it did look a little thinner on the ground than downtown.] Okay. [He came to a half-breathless stop under a twisted streetlight. There was an alien that looked something like a beetle leaning against it, its carapace shattered into a hundred pieces as if something had squeezed it to death. Well, maybe it had fallen from one of the buildings, right? At least it was a little quieter in this part of town.]
Do you know any safe places around here? [There was blood spattered on him from the kills he'd made along the way, but he didn't notice, didn't care. Gwen needed to get somewhere safe and quiet before something noticed that reality was phasing in and out of disarray everywhere she went. If these things were taking prisoners, how excited would they be to get a girl who could open doors and make walls disappear?
And...what the hell was that, half a block away with a goddamn bus in its hand?]