With the crime fighting car gone, they now did their crime fighting the old fashioned way: on foot. The fancy car was much too flashy, Phoenix had decided.
In fact, Medusa and Aries told her of an incident one night, when she and Arcos were walking home, that they found hilarious.
"You will never believe what happened to us tonight!" Medusa had met them at the door of the warehouse, both she and Aries with huge smiles on their faces.
"We were driving and this Mustang pulled up next to us and wanted to race!" Aries had exclaimed.
"The guys in the car asked us where we got our costumes, because they were so realistic," Medusa drawled out 'so', her eyes wide.
"We told them we got them at The Haunted Warehouse," Aries had continued. "But they're only open on Halloween!"
Both he and Medusa had burst out laughing. It must have been much funnier in person, because Arcos nor Phoenix joined in. In fact, Phoenix had been highly annoyed. "I don't want humans to see you," she had said tightly.
"Lighten up, Mama," Aries had waved one of his large hands at her. "They thought we were wearing costumes."
So this late summer night, covered in dust from the exploding warehouse, the Children of the Phoenix were jumping from roof to roof back home. The wind caused by the jumps cooled off both their bodies and blew little clouds of dust behind them as they went.
"Oh," Arcos stopped, "come down to the street, I want to show you something." The bear jumped down to the ground, and waved for the rest of his family to join him.
"Did you even look before you jumped down?" Phoenix admonished.
"Yes, there isn't anybody here," Arcos pointed to the wall. "Look."
They turned toward the wall, and all three of them gasped. On the wall, was a beautiful graffiti mural. On a black background was an elegantly done painting of four animals. In the foreground was a giant boa constrictor. It was gorgeously colored in vivid greens, with black, shining eyes. To the left was a bear, standing on all fours, a dark brown with golden ear tips. To the right was a ram rearing up, his horns curling about his head, this white body shaded in soft gray. And behind them all, and a little above them, rose a great firebird, wings outspread, head pointing to the heavens, beak open in a silent cry. The light from the firebird was rendered over the three animals in front of it, splattering reds, yellows, and oranges over them.
"Arcos!" Phoenix gasped. "Did you do this?"
"Yep!" he drew himself up to his full height and smiled proudly.
"It's wonderful!" said Medusa.
"Why'd you make me so small?" Aries asked, cocking his head to the side and looking at the picture.
"Because it isn't you, it's a ram," Arcos explained. "That's how big rams are compared to boa constrictors and bears."
"You're not supposed to do graffiti," Phoenix felt she had to say, "but, Arcos...this is absolutely gorgeous!" She turned to him, her face grave, "No one saw you, did they?"
Still smiling, Arcos shook his head. "Nope!"
"We need to not let the humans see us," she said quietly. "Especially after that video that person took with their phone."
As if summoning her warning from the aether, they heard several voices coming from the perpendicular street. The four of them retreated to the shadows near a dumpster at the end of the building that Arcos had defaced.
"Hey baby," they heard a male voice drawl. "Don't you want to talk?"
The only reply where several giggles, obvious by the voice, also male.
"Come on, baby," said a different voice. "We just want talk to you."
"You're being complimented for being beautiful," said a third voice.
"Be more grateful, bitch," said a fourth male, in a very different tone from the other three.
The sound of tennis shoes hitting the concrete came closer and closer. A girl, she couldn't have been any more than 12 or 13, her body was still stretched in the beginning of womanhood that hadn't yet filled out, came running into the alley. She stopped half way down, realizing she'd run into a dead end. She turned quickly, her eyes so wide that the Children of the Phoenix could see the whites.
Five young men, they might have just been boys, having just become men, or very close to being so, followed the girl into the alley. "You know," said one of the men, "you should've talked to us." His voice was smug, as if he knew a secret she didn't know.
They advanced on the girl, and she stood there, like a deer frozen in the headlights. Two of the men grabbed her, and began pulling at her arms like a tug of war. The girl let out a small cry.
"Mama," Arcos said quietly. Phoenix stood, as if frozen herself, watching the scene as it unfolded. Every similar type of experience that had happened to her, flashed through her mind. Being a woman, alone, in a Western city was a naturally unsafe experience. There is no woman, she knew, who had not experienced something similar to this scene. Maybe not at such a brutal level, but some sort of violation that occurred simply because one was female. The Phoenix was no exception.
Arcos' verbal nudge bought her mind back into her body, and she stepped out of the shadows quietly, taking her long, golden hair out of her hair sticks, until enough light hit her for the group to see her clearly. "You should try to do that to someone who will fight back," she said, her voice very gentle.
The men stopped, and stared at her as if she were crazy.
"Look at you!" said the one who had told the girl she should have 'talked' to them. He cocked his hip to the side and looked her up and down. "Where did you come from, mama?"
The use of the word Mama, a sacred word that only her three little ones used, set her mouth into a line. "I came from the shadows," she said simply. "You should run now while you still have the chance."
"What?" said one of the other men. "What are you going to do? Scream for us?"
"No," she shook her head, her hair shaking slightly as she did so. "I am not going to utter a word. You might scream some, though."
"And why would that be?"
"Because you are going to be very, very afraid." Her voice was calm, and seemed to come from somewhere else besides herself.
"We should be afraid of you?"
"Yes," she took another step forward. "You should be very afraid of me. You see," she motioned behind her. "I'm with them."
Behind her, out of the shadows, came her three children to stand behind her. The faces of the five men, along with the girl, whom they immediately go, transformed from smugness to horror.
In an instant, Medusa was behind them, blocking their escape. Her tail whipped out and tripped one of the men up, he fell to the floor with a grunt. She moved toward him slowly, her body undulating in a way that could have been called seductive if she was in another setting. "You want to talk me, lover boy?" she hissed. "I have a lot to say."
The man screamed, and tried to scramble away on all fours, but Medusa caught him up her coils. She lifted him up to her mouth, which she had opened wide. She then sunk her long, sharp, fangs into his lower torso, near his femoral artery. His scream was slowly choked out as she squeezed.
Arcos ran toward one of the men, drawing his sledgehammer as he did so. With a great underhanded swing, he hit one of the retreating thugs in the crotch, and sent him flying. He rammed against the wall of the building opposite of his beautiful painting, face first, and fell to the ground. He immediately turned around, and connected with another man in the chest. He went skidding across the concrete. Arcos leapt up and landed at the man's head as he came to a stop. Raising his sledgehammer again, he crushed the man's pelvis with a mighty strike.
Aries did not draw his ax, but instead put his head down and rammed into one of the retreating men from the side, cramming into the dumpster at the end of the alley. The man let out a low cry, almost drowned out by the clang of the dumpster. Aries picked him up, held him above the ground, and shook him slightly. "You can't get any that you gotta do this?" He brought the man close to his face, his eyes, with his hourglass shaped pupils close. "Even I can get some without having to force a girl." He then threw the man in the air, and he came down on Aries horns. The ram shook his head, and the man let out a scream as the sharp tips of his assailant's horns tore deep into his flesh. When he finally fell off, Aries then stamped down on his chest with one of his large, hoof-like feet, sending a gross crunch echoing through the air.
Phoenix walked up slowly to the last of the men, her children all engaged in the others, leaving this one a quivering mass against the wall where Arcos had painted his mural. "Are you afraid of me now?" she asked, taking out her slingshot.
"Please," he man begged. "Please, I'll do whatever you want." He held up his hands. "Please."
"Oh, you will do what I want," she assured him, her body almost pressed against his as she looked up into his face. She then backed up from him, with the same agonizing slowness.
Relief spread across the man's face at her retreat. "Thank you," he breathed, "thank you. Thank you."
"You're welcome," she replied. In a blur, she had taken two bullets out of her pouch, pulled her slingshot back, and sent the bullet casings flying. They hit the man in the crotch with a soft "ttthhhpp." He let out a scream, and sank to the ground, his hands clutching in between his legs. She then took another two out, and aimed them at his head. They hit with a deadly accuracy and force. The man fell to the ground, blood pooling where lay.
Phoenix immediately put her slingshot back in her belt, and turned toward the girl, who was pressed against the wall, as if trying to hide inside the mural painted on it. She came down beside her and asked gently, "Are you hurt?"
The girl shook her head, staring wildly at her, and then each of her children as they came up behind her.
"These men will not bother you, nor anyone else, ever again," Phoenix assured her. "Are you sure you aren't hurt?"
"I—I—I'm not," she managed to get out. "Are you…are you angels of the LORD?"
Phoenix laughed at the absurdity of the question, but stopped when she saw the hurt on the girl's face. "No, far from it," she said with a smile. She stood up, and helped the girl to her feet. "Go home," she ordered mildly. "And be good."
"I—I—I will," the girl said. Then she turned and ran off.
The Phoenix didn't like being angry. It made her feel sticky, like sweat that was always in the process of drying. No, she thought, being angry was a flash, it was there, like a dragon flying overhead. But once the dragon had passed, the anger was gone, used up, and she was back to normal again. This thing which she was feeling, it wasn't anger. It was a grudge.
And it was hard to hold when Chategris kept sending people over to her, singing her praises. When he finally met the conditions she had set for herself for his path to forgiveness, it was impossible for her do so.
"Ma Cherie," he said as he climbed through the garden window. "There you are!" He even said it in English.
"I have always been here," she said dryly.
"Ahhh," he said, switching to French. "Don't be angry. I have come to bring ma Medicienne bein-amiee a gift."
"If I was your beloved doctor," she said still speaking in English, "you wouldn't have treated me so."
Crevan crawled through the window after Chategris, smiling sheepishly as he entered. Klashtooth followed the silver fox, the rabbit was not smiling.
"At least be honest," Phoenix said in French. "You love what I can give, not me."
"That isn't true!" he said, coming toward her, and digging in his back jeans pocket. He wore no vest in the summer heat, his chest was bare, with nothing but his gray fur covering it. He took out a small box, and held it out to her when he reached her. "Pour tu," he said.
"I don't want it," she said flatly.
"I brought it for you," he said in a purr.
"You brought it so that I wouldn't be mad at you anymore," she told him. "I am tired of playing games, Chategris. What do you want?"
He said, "Come dance with us tonight."
"Come dance with you tonight?" she scoffed.
"I miss ma Medicienne," he said. "We miss The Children of the Phoenix. You are our friends…"
"Are you serious? After what you called me?"
He shook his head, the look on his face truly did look regretful. "I was angry," he said. "What I said was disrespectful—"
"Disrespectful?" she cut him off. "It wasn't just disrespectful. It was insulting. You called me a witch!" She made her tiny hands into fists by her side. "And not a good witch!"
"You are a good witch," Chategris said. When saw the Phoenix's eyes go wide and her lips begin to curl, he put his hands up in front of him. "You have helped so many of my people, with good magic…"
"It isn't magic!" she almost screamed. "If one of your imbecilic people would pay attention long enough to listen to me, I could teach them how to do what I do! It isn't magic!"
"It is a true gift," he said quickly, his voice sounded disturbed. "A gift that I have been fortunate to receive. Not as fortunate as your friendship," he said, the purr completely out of his voice. He held out the box to her again, "I have come with a gift, and with an invitation to my friend."
She crossed her arms and glared at him.
"Please," he said, again offering her the box.
She sighed and took it from him. Opening it, expecting a piece of jewelry, she was surprised to see an mp3 player in it. Lifting it out of the box, it wasn't just any mp3 player, it was an ipod.
"It has the music that I know you like on it," he said. "You can listen to your music as you walk the streets of New York City."
She scrolled through the song list, and sure enough, it was filled with dance songs, most from the 90s and early millennium. He had fill it with songs she would like. She looked up at him, "Say you're sorry."
He blinked. "I have," he said, motioning to the ipod.
"No," she put the ipod back in the box and held it out to him to take back. "Say, 'I'm sorry'."
He took in a deep breath.
"You say you are sorry, and I will forgive you. And we will celebrate our making up by dancing tonight." She wanted to make this entire thing hard for him, but holding his words against him was taking too much of her own emotion and thoughts. "And you will never call me a witchdoctor again."
"Je suis desole," he said.
She smiled, feeling a weight lifted off her shoulders that his suffering was now done. "Je te pardonne," she said. "Let's go dance!"
As soon as they arrived at the cargo bay, the radio was turned on. Of the mutants who were left, most had seemed to have recovered from their wounds. The few that hadn't, Phoenix check on, and was given grateful smiles and hellos as a reward.
When bodies began to congregate around the radio to dance, the absence of large number of mutants was painfully evident. The heat that was usually produced by such an activity was many degrees less, despite the summer night. The smell, of animals mingling, each distinct in their scent, mammals, reptiles, and insects, and even a few plants, was much less than it was, and in the background was the smell of a stale barn, stagnancy never having been a part of the smell before.
It had been a long time since the Phoenix had had her mind blank. One of the few things that rested her brain was dancing, getting lost in the music. She would just be getting to that place of euphoria, that place where her mind was silent, when the DJ on the radio would put on a slower song, and it would bring her back to reality. Many of the mutants asked to dance with her, and she agreed, a rare occurrence. She danced with Toaster, with Razz, even with Klashtooth, who smiled at her when they danced arm in arm.
She agreed to dance with Chategris slowly, her arms about his neck, and his around her waist. His paws took up almost her entire back with their width, and she could feel the fur on hands wetting with the sweat seeping through her shirt on her back. The radio blared out, "Looking in your eyes/While you're on the other side/(and I think that shortly I gotta thing for you)/You're doing it on purpose,/wind it,/ work it./I can tell by the way that you're looking at me, girl." They moved to the beat of the song, catching their breath after the frenzy of club beats they'd danced to before.
Chategris bent down, so his head was close to hers. "I missed The Children of the Phoenix," he said quietly. After a few moments of a pause, he purred, "I have missed you, ma Cherie."
She just swayed with him, not answering. Contemplating his words as they danced, she realized, she had not missed him.
My fabulous friend, Lydja-chan, had written a little gem that takes place during this chapter. Go and read it, it's fabulous. s/11134036/1/Turn-Down-Service