DOWNTOWN: Downfont Street Much of the area is dominated by businesses and other small businesses of interest, though much of the passing traffic and pedestrians tend to steer clear, intent on getting to their destinations on time. The surrounding office and corporate buildings stand much taller over the small one and two story offices and businesses, tall structures that intimidate and pressure those surrounding establishments. During much of the daylight hour the surrounding sidewalks are flooded with pedestrians and those hurrying along to work or trying to catch a bus or taxi amidst the many others doing the same. During the evening much of the area is calm save for the ever-present traffic and those who seek the nightlife. The streets and sidewalks are generally clean save for the occasional foodstuff or random empty can of soda tossed on the ground. Like much of the downtown area, trees guarded by metal fencing around their trunks are placed far from one another along the sidewalk, interrupted occasionally by a tall silver streetlamp. Contents: Raven Obvious exits: Newtrent Blvd. Mars Pkwy. Neptune Ave. Maricumo Ave. It's roughly midday, and the traffic downtown is .. rather congested. Moreso, actually, even for this particular part of the city. The cars have stopped for about five blocks, horns adding to the noise pollution as impatient drivers seem to think that honking will make whatever is blocking the traffic to go away. All it serves is to annoy other drivers, who honk THEIR horns to drown out the sound of horns honking, and all -that- does is deafen pedestrians on the streets, who start to get annoyed and shout at the people in the cars to SHUT THE $@&*( UP. So yes, tension is skyrocketing. Raven is present, in civilian garb, apparently having been doing a little shopping. For an empath like her, the tension in the area is more than a little painful - and overwhelming. This in addition to the feeling of some sort of -presence- starting to weigh down on the general area isn't making the gathered feel a whole lot better. Just above there is a heavy black cloud, shadowy in make, a murder of crows gathering inexplicably along the phone wires and building ledges, mantling feathers and looking about. One of those cars stuck in the traffic jam is Ask's little Toyota, and unlike most of the other cars, hers is silent. After all, there's a bunch of other cars honking their horns with a will, and it doesn't seem to be getting them anywhere. Instead, hers is blaring music, pumped as loud as the speakers will go, while she sings at the top of her lungs--fortunately, her voice is nearly lost beneath the din. Although said din is probably just adding to the annoyance of the others. "FISH IN THE SEA~ YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL~ RIVER RUNNING FREE~ YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL!" o/` ...well, hey, it's helping her pass the time while stuck in this eternal jam. After a little while you get used to strange things happening, or just seeing strange things in general. The weird weather with the black cloud is noticed by Leon as he walks down the street with his hands tucked into the pockets of his bomber jacket. Is that normal around here? He really wouldn't know. The ex-cop walks over to a hotdog stand and orders one, bringing his money out to pay for it. Window shopping through some of the more expensive stores isn't really an option. Besides, who needs all that junk anyway? The sounds of a city are too customary for Leon to notice, they're all drowned out as background noise. Finnian would be one of those pedestrians on the sidewalk who's getting deafened by all the honking cars. Fortunately, his idea of responding to it does not involving cussing at the top of his lungs. Instead, it involves--uh--singing the Song That Never Ends at the top of his lungs as he makes his way along, annoying the hell out of his fellow pedestrians and listening drivers alike. Aural revenge, for the win! ...He does stop singing, though, on noticing all the crows about--that's kind of weird, and enough to make Finn stop and pull out his camera to take a picture of the birds. /Hmm./ So! We have one designated driver currently singing in her car, one ex cop eating a hot dog, and one aspiring cameraman who was also adding to the noise. The ravens take note of the camera, a few of them making aggressive 'caws!' or taking flight when the camera's shutter clickfooshes. A few more ravens take flight, perhaps taking offense at the song that was being sung by Finnian, a number of them relocating to a higher point on the building. One particularly hungry - or just plain BOLD - raven abruptly SWOOPS to grab the hotdog that Leon is eating, not stopping if it misses, to join its brethren. The honking continues, a few people actually abandoning their cars to start squeezing between the other stopped cars to find out what's causing the problem. Probably an accident of some sort. The thuppa-thuppa-thuppa of a traffic copter is heard drawing near, passing overhead and towards the source of the disturbance, followed by two different news choppers. As one particular driver passes Ask's car, something drops, hooking on the edge of the mirror to dangle, oh so tantalizingly. As the window is rolled down--it's a nice brisk day, not too cold nor too warm--Ask gets an earful of squawking crow as some of them scatter at being taken pictures of. Maybe they're camera-shy. Quickly, though, her attention is taken away as choppers pass overhead. Halting in her belting, she sticks her head out the window, peering up curiously. What /is/ taking so long? Which puts her in the perfect position to see the thing that drops onto her side-mirror as another curious driver passes. Blinking, she reaches for it, opening her mouth to call, "Hey, uh, mister? I think you dropped this?" Leon is certainly glad he can drown out the noises, especially the singing of obnoxious songs! He's more concerned with having his lunch before continuing on his way. Once the hot dog is taken he adds some toppings to it, a bit of ketchup, mustard, and some relish. As it's lifted he sees the bird diving in and he abruptly ducks his head, throwing his other hand into the air to swat the thing away. "Get outta here!" Leon's hotdog is saved! Stupid bird. u_u In triumph a big, defiant bite of his hotdog is taken. *chomp* YEAH! Looks good don't it ya punk bird! *grumble* Huh. Finn's not used to getting that kind of reaction. He lowers the camera, blinking at the birds--then turning to watch the one that goes swooping after Leon's hotdog. That's /definitely/ not normal bird behavior, unless they were, like, starving. "That's so weird," he remarks to no one in particular, putting the camera away. With the traffic chopper making its way over, it's only getting steadily noisier on the ground--Finn rubs at an ear, turning away from Leon again to watch the 'copter overhead and traffic below by turns. Surprisingly, the man doesn't look back when Ask calls after him. Maybe he just didn't hear her? The shiny thing hanging on the side mirror though, is a medallion - one that's rather old looking, gem encrusted with its own sigils on the back. Touch it! You know you wanna! The crow that misses Leon's hotdog might have made another pass, but .. hmf! Mean ol' human, not sharing! Rachel, on the other hand, makes her way towards Finn, a frown on her face (when /isn't/ she frowning or looking grumpy in general though? "Hey -" She begins. This is, of course, when everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Three things happen, in fact. 1) The crows that had been roosting quietly and looking annoyed in general abruptly take to the air in a single burst of feathers, either aiming for or being pulled in by the heavy black cloud overhead, each bird screeching in a panic. 2) The few birds /not/ being pulled in by the cloud also take to the air, but they begin flying down, attacking the people on the street. That includes Leon, Finnian (and of course Raven herself). This brings in a world of panic and chaos as pedestrians start flailing, swatting at the birds and running every which way to escape. 3) The black cloud in the air vanishes, rematerializing at the head of the traffic jam, in the shame of a large winged creature, roughly ten to fifteen feet in height. Having materialized in the air, it lands /heavily/ on the street, pausing to beat its wings forward with enough force to send a wave forward, knocking aside anything that isn't nailed down, and shattering some windshields on the first few lines of cars. Now that's odd--but it is noisy. Pulling the keys out of the engine, and mercifully shutting off the radio (now blasting Abandoned Pools), Ask picks up the medallion and begins to trot after the disappearing man. "Hey! Sir! Your-- ooh, shiny." ... well, it /is./ And more to the point, it looks old and, moreover, magical. Her steps slow as she peers more closely at the medallion. It doesn't /look/ like anything she's seen before in her books, but that doesn't necessarily mean much... and as she focuses on it, it does feel like it emanates some kind of power. What, she's not certain--her senses aren't that refined-- but... It's about this point that things go to hell. Which, contrary to rumor, is not a place that Ask is all that at home in. Eeking, Ask ducks, throwing her arms up over her head to shield herself from the crows going insane. Normally she likes crows--most carrion-feeders are all right in her book, generally--but this is something else altogether! And /then/ something else yet again happens to pull her attention away. Gaping at the winged creature as it materializes, she has a moment to wonder whether some necromancer's summoning went horribly wrong, before the impact of landing at the wave of air from its wings buffets her, sending her stumbling back and tripping over the sidewalk curb to tumble head over heels for a few feet. Um, ow. She's too stunned right now to do anything but collect her wits for the moment, though. Leon is about to take his second bite when he looks up slowly at the cloud as the birds are drawn into it. Okay.. that can't be normal. What's more annoying is when the birds come swooping down. Leon's forced to drop his food this time in order to duck his head and starts swatting them away with his arms. Get outta here! With his head ducked he looks up with his eyes, blinking a few times as he stares at the creature that's formed at the end of the street. "Oh great." The blast of wind is felt all the way down the street as people are running, some falling over on their way out of the area. Leon ducks down to one knee as the blast passes over him. "Monsters." He mutters to himself, then reaches into his jacket to bring out his 9mm. "Everyone get out of here now!" The shout is issued as a command, not that anyone needed Leon to ask twice. He hopes the local police will be on the way soon. It'll take a lot of bullets for his 9mm to kill something -that- big. "...why can't anything normal ever happen?" Finnian asks aloud, in potent despair, as the birds are sucked into the cloud. And then-- "Oh shit, crows!" He does in fact yell that, unshouldering his camera bag with rare prescience and swinging it at the nearest of the birds. Then he takes off running down the street and (not that it's a surprise, given his luck) right in the direction of the big winged monster. Which he rapidly realizes is the wrong direction around the time Leon starts shouting, and makes to backpedal the other way--violet eyes going round with shock--when he catches sight of Ask flopping across the sidewalk like so many potatoes. Another abrupt reversal of direction follows, and once again, Finn's running toward the monster. "Ask! Ask, are you okay?! We gotta get out of here!" Brilliant, Finn, simply brilliant. "Ask!" It's every man for themselves! The demon avian starts forward, and everyone is in a sudden rush to GET OUT OF THEIR CARS, some hurting themselves or each other in the process. People who fall are promptly tripped over or trampled on in the mad dash to get AWAY from the giant monster. One or two however, are left in shock, pointing dumbly at the sight, an 'abuh' on their lips. The demon, however, has its target in sight - namely Ask - and already it is lunging forward, stomping on cars and batting anyone in its way to the side. Some of the ravens are promptly knocked to the ground by Leon's efforts, another number scattering to regroup. One or two birds give chase when Finnian takes off, but they break pursuit and wing in the opposite direction on sight of the BIG Demon. Hey, Ask would like to get out of here, except for the fact that, well. People are getting hurt, and there's a demon coming for her. Oh, and the bit about mazed wits and not quite being able to walk straight just yet, but aside from that. Today just isn't her day, is it? Coming to a rest in a more-or-less sitting position, the redhead wobbles for a few moments, before she shakes her head and her eyes refocus. On Finn running toward her, as it so happens, and the guy behind him taking out a--eek-- a gun. "Finn?" she asks, blinking. Then a wind reeking of unwashed demon carries over her, and she twists in place. Her eyes widen. Oh /shit./ Nearly falling backward, she somehow manages to twist around to face the demon, though not quite able to gain her feet just yet. There's no time to respond further. Thrusting her hands out before her, the medallion still clutched in one, she shouts a strange, crackling set of syllables, the words nearly drowned beneath the screams filling the air. There's no knowing whether it will respond to the same spells she knows, or even if it's weak enough to fall under her power, but it's the first thing she can think of. Hey, Ask would like to get out of here, except for the fact that, well. People are getting hurt, and there's a demon coming for her. Oh, and the bit about mazed wits and not quite being able to walk straight just yet, but aside from that. Today just isn't her day, is it? Coming to a rest in a more-or-less sitting position, the redhead wobbles for a few moments, before she shakes her head and her eyes refocus. On Finn running toward her, as it so happens, and the guy behind him taking out a--eek-- a gun. "Finn?" she asks, blinking. Then a wind reeking of unwashed demon carries over her, and she twists in place. Her eyes widen. Oh /shit./ Nearly falling backward, she somehow manages to twist around to face the demon, though not quite able to gain her feet just yet. There's no time to respond further. Thrusting her hands out before her, the medallion still clutched in one, she shouts a strange, crackling set of syllables, the words nearly drowned beneath the screams filling the air. There's no knowing whether it will respond to the same spells she knows, or even if it's weak enough to fall under her power, but it's the first thing she can think of. Great! She's up on her feet! Now they can get out of here, and let the guy with the gun take care of things! Finnian starts backing away--then stops in his tracks and stares as Ask...pointedly does not start running away, in favor of doing SOMETHING Finn is pretty sure is more than just yelling at it. "Ask!" he says, voice almost a whine in its urgency. "Come on! We've got to--hey, what are you--" He seems to think better at whining at her a moment later, instead batting away the last of the crows... Then darting over to grab the first heavy thing he can conceivably pick up--in this case, someone's abandoned tire iron. That done, he sticks himself to the girl's side like a limpet, looking NOT at all confident about this, from the wide cast of his eye and the way his lower lip is caught between his teeth. Hopefully whatever she's doing will actually work. While the crows seem to be keeping their distance for the moment, another figure in the distance is helping people escape to safety, pulling them out of their cars or helping them to their feet. The demon is more intent on the woman screaming things in a foreign language at it. Or not quite a foreign language. A stomp forward and the demon pauses a moment, tilting its head. You'd almost imagine it saying, 'Are you -serious-?' Unfortunately, this particular demon is of higher level than the others that had been menacing the populace. Instead the demon ducks its head forward to snap at Ask - particularly at the medallion in her hands. The other crows who had been standing by rush forward with a flurry of wings to attack Finnian. Batter up, Finn! ... well, crap. That didn't work out so well. Ask has a moment of hope, and holds her breath as the demon tilts its head- -and then it comes after her, the flung out power rebounding to her, and she quickly abandons Plan A in favor of Plan B: dodging. "Watch out!" She throws herself to the side, barreling into Finn and hopefully taking him out of the way of the crows while getting herself out of the way of the teeth snapping at her. Of course, she's probably just getting in the way of his tire iron, too, or at least the crows attempting to attack him. She hasn't quite kenned to the idea that the demon's after the medallion just yet, though. Even as she tumbles out of the way, she stuffs the things in her hands--her keys and the medallion--into her pockets and places her hands together, beginning to whisper something very fast and very quietly. ...No, that didn't go so hot. Finn whips around at the sound of wings, holding the tire iron up in front of him like a baseball bat and taking a preemptory swing at one or two of the black birds who get too close. Then Ask is bowling into him (fortunately from the side opposite the tire iron) and at that point his own native clumsiness takes over, so down he goes in a tangle of limbs, the camerabag landing on top of him. He manages somehow to get untangled and up on his feet again in moments, staring at the wingy demon thing with great big eyes- -then he scrabbles for his camera again, actually putting the tire iron (eugh) in his mouth to hold it while he gets the camera up and-- Oh come on, Finn! Now is so not the time to be taking pictures! Except that this picture likely won't come out so hot, because he cranks the flash up to "flood" and, uh, points it right in the demon's face. "Mmph!" is as much warning as he can manage to Ask before that flash goes off, and then he's scrambling to get the camera back in his bag--okay, screw that, in all the fumbling he dropped the bag, so instead the camera goes away in his pocket and the tire iron is back in his hands again. In time enough, with any luck (which he has very little of), to fend off a second attack from those crows. The demon knows the medallion has been put in the woman's pocket. Not a wise place to put it, really, but once she figures that the medallion is what the demon is after, hopefully she'll be smart and get rid of it @.@ It recoils slightly at the flash form the camera, but only a second before one of the demon's wings swings down to smack into Ask if she doesn't get out of the way in time, to fling her into the side of one of the undamaged cars. The crows on the other hand, are having a fine time hassling Finnian, though that tire iron of his has -got- to go! A number of birds are already being knocked out of the air, either with broken wings or just plain dazed when the makeshift weapon comes in contact with their fragile bodies. As she continues to whisper, Ask's eyes slowly brighten... quite literally. A red light begins to gleam in them, washing out the normal green, until her pupils are a bright fiery red, complete with illumination. It's not an effect that lasts long, though, for as she completes the cantrip, the light drains as suddenly as it came. Not that it saves her just now. The wing smacks into her, sending her to crash hard against the side of the car with a strangled grunt as the wind is knocked out of her. Sliding down to the ground, she shakes her head, eyes dazed and unfocused. A second later, two dark shapes flow from behind the car--mastiffs, easily as large as a bull, and unnaturally black and shadowy. They don't seem to reflect light so much as absorb it entirely, just as they absorb sound--for each movement they make comes in absolute silence as they move with sinuous grace. They take a moment to orient themselves, before fixing on the big demon as the obvious target, and move to strike, jaws gaping wide as they fling themselves at the demon. Gah! Crows everywhere! Finn kicks the camera bag out of his way, turning in time to see Ask go flying into the car. He makes a noise of dismay, a syllable close to her name but somewhat garbled by urgency--and then he takes a flying leap toward her, not get noticing the fact she's got her own defenders on her way. "Hey ugly!" he yells at the big demon as he does--then says some distinctly noncomplimentary things as one of the crows gets in a good hit at his face. He ducks down, covering his head with his arms, which means he also knocks himself a good one with his own tire iron. It /hurts/, but he doesn't do much more than cringe and come up with tears of pain in his eyes--before aiming another wild swipe at the crows in the direction of the big nasty demon. If he weren't hurting, and didn't have a heavy thing to sling around and look threatening with, he'd probably run away screaming. "That's right, I'm talking to you!" he yells at the demon, voice breaking somewhere in the middle of "talking". ...oof. Three birds alight on Ask's form; two on the shoulder, leaning dangerously close to her eyes with their own - not a normal crow's eyes, but four red eyes, two paired over two, glaring meaningfully at the girl. Don't move or we'll peck yer eyes out! We are the mafia ravens! We mean business! The third bird lands on Ask's leg, heedless of girl and mastiffs as it proceeds to poke its beak into her pocket for the medallion. Gimme shiny! The demon turns its attention to Finnian when the boy demands its attention. Okie. You wanted it's attention, you got it's attention. This is not necessarily a good thing when the bird attempts to pierce the young boy's shoulder with its beak. of course, with Finnian taking its attention, the crow demon has yet to take note of Ask's own defenders creeping forward.. until it feels a pair of fangs suddenly clamping down on one of its wings. The demon aborts its task in stabbing Finnian in favor of flailing one wing at the boy, while craning its neck around to slash at the nearest mastiff. Looking up at the garbled sound of her name, Ask winces in sympathetic pain as Finn manages to hit himself on the head, and very nearly scrambles up to add her own (somewhat pathetic) efforts to the mix-- Except that then the crows, with their unnatural assortment of eyes, land on her shoulders, sharp curved beaks hovering dangerously close to her eyes. Freezing, said eyes going very wide, she does her best not to move. "Okay, Mr. Crows, I'll be goo--oh, the medallion? You want the medallion?" For a second, she hesitates. Generally, it's not a good idea to give a big demon what it wants, since what it wants just generally furthers the path toward more chaos and destruction. Buuut... in this case, the crow'll find it soon, anyway. Moving very slowly, she slips her hand into her pocket, ready to freeze if it looks like the crows on her shoulders are going to take offense. "You want this, right?" she asks in a coaxing voice. "Just give me a moment..." If allowed, she'll wriggle her hand into her pocket, close her fingers around the medallion, and withdraw it, holding it out in one hand--and then, in the next moment, fling it toward one of the summoned hounds with a shouted command, moving to duck her head and cover her eyes with her other forearm at the same moment. Which means her aim probably isn't all that great, so it might go astray. One of the hounds turns at the command, and, spying the medallion glinting through the air, springs to close its jaws about it. If it manages to catch it, barring interference, it'll start running at inhuman speeds, leaping over cars and sprinting down alleys. The other one continues to try to savage the crow- demon's wing. No, this is /definitely/ not a good thing. "Ahh!" Finn backpedals as fast as he can, which means the bird-demon succeeds in...gashing his shoulder, instead of piercing it clean through. "AHH!" Louder, this time, in honest pain as he drops the tire iron to grab at the injury--and then finds himself knocked sprawling onto his back by a swing of the demon-bird's wing. Fortunately the shadow hounds manage to draw the thing's attention--and though Finn lies there, stunned, for several moments, he recollects himself enough to shove backwards on the pavement, backing himself into the nearest solid object (a lamp post) and trying to catch his breath enough to get back up on his feet. ...ow. The beaks of the shoulder crows click and snap menacingly when Ask starts to move. The third crow is ready to snap the medallion out of the woman's hand, when she abruptly flings it - there are a total of five crows remaining, including the ones on Ask's shoulders and leg. The two still standing by mad dive for the medallion, one snapping it up by the chain in time to get bitten in half by the mastiff. OW. Luckily! .. or not so.. its companion manages to catch the medallion as it falls, and quickly wingbeats to get higher and out of mastiff range. Fly! Fly away! The two birds on Ask's shoulders caw furiously and turn to peck out her eyes - only with her covering her eyes, they have to change their target, pecking at face and biting at her hands instead, tiny nails clawing at her hands and their wings beating at her head. As for Finn - is he upgrading his tire iron to a lamp post? Gasp! The remaining, unoccupied raven regards the scene, boggling slightly, and then quickly takes wing to its fallen comrade. Jack! Jack! What's become of you! What about our children! Speak to me Jack! SPEAK TO ME! I'm a widoooooooow! (But at least I'm already black!) With the medallion sucessfully snatched, the demon crow abruptly lets out a screach when one final wing shake causes the mastiff to come away with a large portion of its wing. Furious, the bird turns away from Finnian to turn on the mastiff, one wing hanging uselessly at its side, the other aiming to strike the mastiff with its remaining wing. A half-assed strike really, as its good wing starts to flap pitifully in an attempt to escape. Gimpy little thing. Okay, so being pecked and scratched on the arms and head is a sight better than having her eyes pecked out... but /still/, it hurts. And she's no fighter-- hell, she's only been in one fistfight, and that was when she was eleven. Cowering, keeping her face covered with one arm, she flails the other arm at the crows, most of her strikes going wild as she is aiming none of them. The mastiff takes a moment to chew the crow before it remembers it's here on business, lunging after the one carrying the medallion--but it falls short, and, noticing Ask's plight, hesitates before returning to lunge at the two left harassing her. The other hound harassing the crow-demon falls back, a piece of wing in its jaws, and spends too long releasing it--the next strike from the crow-demon knocks it back on its haunches. Snarling silently, it twists back to its feet and lunges at the demon again, but the pause is enough to give it a chance to get away. Finnian can absolutely agree that getting pecked and scratched by birds, no matter how small or large, sucks. He'll have to wait until later to commiserate, though, given that they aren't quite out of the woods yet. Finn takes a deep breath, peeling his hand away from his shoulder and cringing at the sticky blood covering it... Before he pushes himself to his feet, darting across the space between him and the abandoned tire iron, snapping up with a slightly nutsoid look in his eyes as he notices the big crow-demon trying to get away. "Hyah!" So he flings the tire iron at its head. Kid's got an arm on him, even when he's leaking blood out of one shoulder and staggering a little from the injury. That done, though, he's quick to turn back toward Ask, and aims a couple of barehanded swats at the little crows. "Get off of her! Stupid birds! Go bother somebody else!" Shadow dogs? He'll, uh...just...ignore those for now; thinking about them for too long would probably also result in the desire to curl up in a ball and cry. *TONG!* The tire iron strikes true, and while it would be hysterical if the crow demon was defeated from getting knocked in the head with a tire iron, such is not the case. It does knock the beast for a loopfor a second, before it quickly lumbers away, lest those shadow mastiffs tear it limb from limb. More. @.@ Notablyit heads in the direction that crow with the medallion flew. (course in the chaos, who would notice that little detail?) The two birds attacking Ask abruptly flutter away at the assault from mastiff and boy, cawing angrily. Rodney King! Rodney King! But with so many defenders, there's little they can do to Ask - and they'll be lucky to get away with their own feathers intact. The two birds circle over the widowed crow, cawing down at it until it too takes to the air, the trio quickly fleeing the scene. Alas poor Jack, he was so young! SO YOUNG! and then he fell in with fowl crowd! Oh why, WHY does God always take the good ones? *SOB* Shortly after the demons escape the area, however, .. well rush hour is the least of people's concerns. Half of them were so panicked they probably -ran- home; Triple A will have it's work cut out for it tomorrow morning. The shadow-hounds, when the birds fly off, begin to pursue--and they're unholily fast. But still not quite fast enough to keep up with a bird flying determinedly, especially since the birds don't have to cut around abandoned cars and can simply fly over the lower buildings. ...are they out of the woods now? It looks like it. Or at least, feels like it. At any rate, Ask isn't feeling any more pecking and clawing or buffeting going on. Cautiously, she peeks up--when she's not immediately attacked again, she lets her arms fall, and straightens. She's still slumped in a half-seated position against the car, and when she tries to move, winces. Oh, she's going to be one biiiig bruise tomorrow. Fortunately, though, she doesn't seem to have done anything worse than wrench a few things, despite all the tumbling and battering she'd received. "What on earth... or off it... was that all about?" are her first words. Her next are, "Oh my god! Are you okay? You're bleeding!" Scrambling to her feet--with quite a few creaks--she reaches to take a hold of his arm, looking at the bleeding gouge. A second later, over Finn's shoulder, she notices the shadow-hounds returning, their chase frustrated, and makes a quick, sharp gesture with her free hand. Slowing to a trot, the hounds veer off to the side, trotting behind a set of cars. They don't emerge from the other side. "Those were real?" Finn asks, nearly stepping on top of Ask's questions about his health. "The birds and the--oh, uh, yeah, that." He's bleeding! On closer inspection, it's a lot gorier than it looks--something Finn can't really assess from the vantage he's got on it, looking down in a sort of skewed way and still trying to catch his breath. "How bad does it--uhm." Actually, it's a LOT gorier than it looks, because the wound is also very busily knitting itself together a...lot faster than human wounds usually do. A LOT faster, going from open bleeding gouge to just scabbing over now, with no sign of stopping. "Uhm," he says again, intelligently, and looking up at Ask. "It's okay, I think? Is it supposed to do that?" This is some seriously creepy shit, man, or so the look in Finn's eyes says. He turns to follow the shadow-hounds briefly, notices them pointedly not appearing from the other side of the car...and covers his eyes with his free hand, taking a big breath as if trying to steady himself. "I...think I need to sit down." The last couple of words come out in a squeak. "Are, uhm--are you okay?" Right, got to remember to ask about that, too, even if his arm is busily obeying the apparent laws of physics and biology and knitting itself back together as he watches! At least now that it's scabbed over it seems to be slowing down, but...whoa. "My bruises are telling me they were real," Ask responds wryly, her sense of humor apparently not entirely shaken by this episode. Bending closer to the puncture, she gently lifts the torn flaps of shirt away from the raw edges of the hole. "Here, lemme look at tha... ... uh." That, as she notices the speed at which it's healing itself. It's hard not to, especially from her perspective. Well, okay. "... looks like you're fine now," she says, blankly for a moment, then appends a smile to the end of her words as she recovers rather quickly from that shock. Then again, her next-oldest sister has a similar ability--except that it's focused on other people rather than herself--so it's not the first time she's seen something like that. "Hey! How come you didn't tell me you had an ability like that?" Wait. Pause and review his words. "-- don't tell me this is the first time you've realized it?" Ah--he'd seen the hounds. She wasn't entirely certain that she'd wanted him to, which was why she'd signaled their dismissal from here, but... ah well, too late, and no use crying over spilt milk. Ask just squeezes his arm reassuringly. "I'm all right," she answers his question, before wincing slightly and adding with a hint of a giggle, "Stiff and bruised, but okay." She glances ruefully down at her scratch-covered arms. "... I think I could use a seat, too. C'mon, my car's not too far off, and it's probably more comfortable than sitting on the ground." It's an even question whether she could actually drive out, as most of the cars are still abandoned in their jam; maybe with a little luck. Before she heads back, though, she does a rather curious and slightly gruesome thing: taking a few steps to the downed crows, she picks up those that remain the most intact, with a minor blow to the head or internal injuries. Just three, which she dangles from one hand by the feet, their wings flopping limply as she turns and forges back to her car.