Friends in Strange Places

[Jaxon]

The man on a mission was speaking to him and smoking, but Jax the Magnificent offered the same welcoming smile he always started conversations with. The city might be dark, dank, and dangerous as hell but one could never hope to make new friends to survive the apocalypse with if one wasn’t willing to leave ones comfort zone and green new people now and then. The woman followed right after, and Jaxon immediately recognized that he was outnumbered. Possibly outgunned, too, though that remained to be seen for now. As for him, he never went anywhere these nights without his favorite handgun and a wicked blade equally useful for use in rituals as it was for stabbing, gutting, and making things bleed.

“A once in a lifetime experience?” He parroted curiously, hackles only now starting to rise along with the hair on the back of his neck. He smoothly pocketed his phone that he had used to take the aforementioned test – totally improbable that he was a Hufflepuff, and he was sure he was going to be proving that soon. Damnit. The man had stepped close and Jaxon stilled, taking in the obvious factors that were there or lacking. Not a monster from what he could tell. Not a zombie, either. Though the shuffling undead had yet to have any real conversations with him, despite his best efforts to encourage it. Maybe he should capture one sometime… a thought for another night. Unfortunately Jaxon still had yet to come up with an accurate way to figure out a vampire from a not-vampire. His suspicions had yet to be verified where his oddball business-partner of a sort was concerned. Though, the runes tattooing his body beneath his covering clothes sometimes seemed to send him signals when he thought he might be near one. He definitely felt uneasy at the moment, though whether that was a natural inclination against creepy-vibed strangers or something else, he still couldn’t be certain.

“I’m Jaxon,” he replied automatically and then scowled at himself. Why had he given his name to the spooky probable drug-addict? The guy looked like he was jonesing. Did people still say that? He used to see it all the time on the television shows his grandparents watched. Crap, he’d gotten distracted again. And the nearness of the creep stranger was unsettling to the solitary sorcerer. The woman was suddenly a little too close for comfort too. She definitely sounded like a druggie, though the comment about leaving the world lended a hippie vibe that was more innocent sounding than even he could buy into. He opened his mouth to respond to her odd apology when he felt himself shoved closer to the creepy guy, and grunted in shock at the impact.

Of course, his own natural abilities flared to life nearly of their own volition. He had had talents, more or less dormant, before he came to this town and found someone to train him. It hadn’t been surprising how quickly Jax had taken to the new abilities, and then latched onto others, and grown more powerful than he knew what to do with. The girl had started this, and so while in any other situation he likely would have used a very similar tactic and shoved her back, he was already outnumbered and way too close to the guy who looked like he might shoot first and try to ask forgiveness from a dead body next. She was a sorcerer, then, he reasoned, and the guy gripping him too tight for comfort might be one too. Hopefully he wasn’t an average joe human. That thought gave him pause, but it was too late to stop what his ingrained defensive responses where.

Lightening crashed down around him, hitting the pair and nearly blinding Jax before he snapped his eyes closed and winced through the cacophony that sounded in his ears. The familiar smell that followed made his nose wrinkle and he hesitantly opened his own eyes again.

[OOC: used power Lightening Bolt on Sorc-mastery path. :3]

[Heathen]

He was on fire.

Like really on fire.

Okay, so backtracking a little bit, things were going to plan. Or at least, things were going as much to plan as they possibly could when there wasn't really a plan other than 'hey, lets go pick up this guy'. Admittedly, Heathen probably could have benefitted from someone sitting him down to have a chat about the logistics of kidnapping (one of the few crimes with which he was not abundantly familiar). However he was pretty sure that everything was going great right up until the point when he got hit by lightning. Birdee shoved Jaxon towards him, and he was all set to grab the guy up, and carry him off, possibly over his shoulder or tucked under his arm if need be. But no sooner did Jaxon collide with Heathen's chest, and there was the dry crackle of energy in the air. Then there was the smell of ozone, as lightning ripped molecules in the air into pieces.

Heathen literally only had enough time to shove Birdee, probably a little harder than he should have, to one side so she didn't get hit by whatever the **** was happening. This move involved standing, and pushing her right off the bench. As the bolt of pure energy ripped through him, his skin immediately charred in a zig-zag pattern, and burned. The flesh darkened to black and began to flake off. His form went perfectly still, and there was pain. More than pain. It was like someone had meticulously gone over every sensory receptor on him with a cheese grater, and had gotten a little over-zealous with it. It was over almost as soon as it began, but that ache was seared into his skin. He was smoking. His sleeve was also on fire and that was what he took note of next as his arm lifted.

He. Was. On. Fire.

He never had been before, so he responded to it about as well as one might imagine. His first instinct was to scream at it. "WHAT THE ****?!" His words came out loud and enraged. And then he waved his arm to try and get the fire to go away, but that didn't help. So he began to try and take off his maroon trench coat, which involved backing away from Jaxon and Birdee quickly, basically trying to drag the thing off of him as the fire continued to spread up his shoulder. And it wasn't coming off, probably because he didn't have the coordination to not panic whilst flaming. What was it they said to do in his shitty inner-city school? Stop. He stopped mid-movement. Drop. He fell to the ground. Roll. He tucked his arms at his sides and rolled across the grass, which looked a lot less dignified and cool than he would have liked, but it was effective. The flames died down as the they were stamped out, having no oxygen to feed on.

He was up a second later. He was still smoking. At least his skin was no longer sizzling. He had what looked like veins of black across half of his face where the lightning had poured through his body. Almost half of his maroon trench coat was little more than tatters and black char. His gaze narrowed, lips twisting with displeasure. He really needed some nicotine, but he wasn't going anywhere near fire for at least....twenty minutes. "So nobody in this ******* town is normal." He decided. In situations like this, there were really only a handful of options. One was to run with your tail tucked. Well that wasn't Heathen in the slightest. The second was to pick a fight and hope to win. Well Heathen knew his limitations, and getting set on fire by magical lightning was a little above his skill level (only a little, he assured himself). And option three was to learn.

"Okay, Sparky, what the **** was that?" He asked as he drew closer again, his gaze flicking to Birdee to see if she was okay. Before his eyes settled on the other human once more. He gestured vaguely to the burns. "And what the **** are you?"

[Birdee]

Birdee hadn't expected anything to happen, other than the obvious. She would push the guy, and Heathen would get him and they would....they would what? Run off into the night! Yeah! That's what kidnappers did! They grabbed people and ran, right? So they would have the guy and then Birdee could make him into a fricken paladin! Hopefully. She wasn't sure just how that would happen yet, other than Birdee would have to feel the guy up. She remembered that much about what her mentor told her while they casually talked about the sorcerers from hundreds of years ago. Probably when King Arthur was around-that's hold old Sorcerer's were, Birdee thought. Each time her mentor talked about ancient paladins, that's where Birdee's mind immediately went to. Because he was sort of a sorcerer, right? Like, the best sorcerer ever!

But what she expected to happen and what did happen wasn't even close. Suddenly Heathen was shoving her to the ground. Like..what the frick stick? Then she turned to look at Heathen and saw the guy was set ablaze. How, she had no idea, but it was a sight that hadn't even crossed Birdee's mind on what might happen if their plan fizzled. The guy might escape; was an option. He might fight them, even. But set them on fire?! Who did that?! How did he even do that?!

"WOAH! OH MY GOD!" Birdee jumped up and found both her feet before she ran over to Heathen. "Log roll! Log roll!" She chanted a couple more times after that, still hopping around, and finally he seemed to listen and do that. Not that Birdee could take credit for that, because Heathen seemed to be on his way to doing that any way, but she offered him a supportive 'cheer' more or less. What else would she be able to do?

Once the fire was out from Heathen's arm, Birdee's gaze locked on to the other guy as she came to stand beside Heathen, who seemed to be more or less taking the lead of things now. "That was totally cool!" She looked at Heathen and then shrugged her shoulders. "But not! You could have killed my friend here." Never mind that they could have killed Jaxon at some point, but that would have been unintentional, unlike this whole cluster frickery. "Super not cool, but yeah. What are you? A vampire of some kind?" For something not being 'cool,' Birdee's tone seemed to indicate that maybe it was cool after all.