The 'lesser' quirk

Mia raised her brow as Angel arrived. She was welcoming to the princely bow and dipped her head in greeting herself, but she was more than a little surprised to hear she was building some sort of... orphanage? Eh? Well... if she said so but wasn't this the same girl who met her with some sort of tragic backstory? How on earth did she go from that to apparently having the money to fund her own orphanage? More than a little confused, Mia debated looking into her school fire when she got back to campus, but for now just let out a somewhat confused- "... riiiiiiight..." Nodding along slowly as she rose to her feet, stretching out her whole body so her body cracked and popped all over, pushing her hands into the base of her spine.

"Well I dunno about... whatever this orphanage is your talking about, but I'm always willing to help out kids looking for a brighter day, so hey, wouldn't be opposed to a tour when your done. Maybe just drop by to see the kids sometime. Who knows." She shrugged it off mostly as she was asked what kind of patrol they'd be on today.

"Well with Jack I let him fly ahead while I stuck to the ground level, but to be fair he had use, dragony eyes to make use of. For us I'm gonna stick to the air with you. I don't always see everything when I'm flying above the city with huge leaps and bounds, so I'm gonna rely on you to make those sharp turns and redirections if we hear something come up. Other than that, we're just doing the usual hero work. Quick few loops around the city, and if nothing comes of it... well, that's the job kid." She offered a small smirk, because... that is what it was. It was just a job at the end of the day and leaping around the city like this could be all a day in the work of a hero could be. There wasn't always crime, as weird as it was to be dissapointed by that.

"Other than that though... ya just gotta keep up.~" She offered a cheeky smile before turning to the side, rushing to the edge of the rooftop they'd met on and kicking hard off the roof to the point it cracked under the force of her jump, sending her tens of meters up into the air with enough force and speed to carry her over the airspace of the next few streets, her red eyes flicking over her shoulder to catch Angel.

“…Uh huh…” Mia didn’t feel like commenting on the rich auntie thing. The view she had of angel was becoming a messed up tapestry of almost conflicting information but… hey whatever. Mia wasn’t exactly selfish. She had an orphanage apparently or a youth center or whatever. Fair enough, Mia wasn’t exactly gonna just outright refuse the chance to do her part for kids especially when she knew what young kids could go through these days. Quirked or not it almost felt like everyone even from a young age was forced into a game of psychological warfare. The quirked trying to literally scare the non-quirked into submission, and the non-quirked trying to treat the quirked as lesser or other so they mentally didn’t have the capacity to fight back. If Angel was trying to resolve that, regardless of the method, good on her. “Look personally I just don’t ‘get’ how a kid is suddenly owning and running an orphanage but I ain’t gonna question it. Besides, it ain’t what we’re here for today. We’re here to do some hero work right? Boring or exciting that’s what we got on the docket today, so come on feathers.”

With her launch into the air Mia didn’t say much more about it, just focusing on their patrol route for the day as she felt the air sting against her skin. She did notice the pink blur fly past her, breathing a little heavier through her nose. Kid had wings, made sense she’d be faster in the air and hey, Mia’s own form wasn’t exactly the most streamlined… she had to stop viewing this kid in a negative light. She was capable just… way over-eager for her, but Mia had to wonder if she was really much different. She felt she’d have had a lot more personal confidence than Angel, rely a lot less on the opinions of others… but she definitely would have shown off like that given the chance as a kid.

The attempted heart to heart though… definitely not her style.

“Look kid no offense but I ain’t talkin’ about that crap with most of my fellow heroes. I ain’t about to be spilling the beans on that one to you…” She came to a rough landing on one of the rooftops, expecting Angel to stop and pull back so she could still hold a conversation with her, though their earpieces helped close any distance between them anyway. “Besides. No offense, but with how loose lipped you can be I don’t trust you to keep anyone’s secre-“

Cutting off Mia’s admittedly somewhat rude, if mostly just blunt comment, her slightly pointed ears perked up as the sound of a sharp bell ringing a few streets away. Even the lesser business’ tended to have in built alarms these days to help alert patrolling heroes to high and low level crime alike. Mia let out a mildly frustrated breath that it cut her off but slowly it turned into a smile at the idea of getting some action. A cautious glance was sent to Angel, not having worked with her in an action sense in the field before, but hey… good a time as any. “Come on.” She simply stated, kicking off the rooftops, sure to call out with her earpiece. “Do not engage without permission, we’re gonna be observing the situation!”

A few hops later and Mia was standing on the edge of one of the neighbouring rooftops of the street that sourced the alarm they’d been drawn to. Down on the street a few smashed windows of some sort of… specialized boutique seemed to be the source, Mia quirking her bra as a chunky looking fellow crawled out of the boutique. They looked… pale, wrinkly. Like a naked cat. A more tall figure followed them out with a thick coating of fur but… it hovered. Clearly. Like a few inches off of his skin at least. Almost like all the fur the first guy should have was hovering around the second.

“The fuck…” This was certainly an odd quirk to be causing issues, but as Mia looked around the other already KOed civilians in the store seemed to all have mutation quirks. Some had horns that had been cut or shaved down, some seemed to have tusks that had been snapped, or… in the worst case some guy with 4 arms seemed to have his extra limbs laying elsewhere on the ground. Notably he wasn’t bleeding, the point where his arms were missing seemed to have been reduced to a nub. An arm was clearly meant to go there but there’d been no damage in removing it…

“Okay. You got 5 seconds before we move in. What do you make of the situation, what do we got to go on. Quick reactions. GO!” Mia spoke fast and sharp, this was a learning experience afterall and she needed to see Angel could process information like this quickly to handle problems with as much info as possible in such a short time.

Mia glanced across to Angel, taking in what she was doing with the situation before her. Mia had never intended for this, far from it. She’d have wanted to keep Angel away from the action if she could but it was what it was. She took a deep, slow breath, trying to ensure she remained the level headed one as rage clearly boiled under Angel’s skin. For fair reason given what she knew about the girl, but it no less meant that Mia had to be extra careful with how she handled this with the feathered girl. This was a sensitive subject for her, and it’d be interesting to see how things went… perhaps a better teacher would have offered her the chance to leave if this was too much with her. Mia felt she needed to face this head first. Even if she failed or made a mistake, it was gonna be a mistake she could learn from.

“I wouldn’t put robbery out of the equation yet, we ain’t got a good enough eye, we don’t know if he has accomplices out the back but… everything else was good. A strong account even. Most likely ASSUMPTIONS-“ She emphasized. “That we can make is this some form of targeted attack given the signs we can see… but we never rule anything out till we absolutely can. That’s how a villain’s distraction succeeds. Us going blindly on assumptions.” Her tone was firm but it wasn’t scolding. Angel had read the situation well but the smallest nitpicks still had to be nipped in the bud. She glanced to Angel, she didn’t smile, the situation didn’t allow for it right now, not with the girl looking so physically upset by what she was witnessing… but Mia hoped it communicated through her gaze that she was doing a good job so far, regardless of what her words came to.

When she asked for permission to engage, Mia held an arm out and barred her eagerness. “Much as I’m usually gung ho for a fight, we got potential hostages to think about here. Hold back here. When you see an opening swoop in and rescue as many people as you can..” She couldn’t help but smirk, jabbing the girl with her elbow. “You are faster than me, afterall.”

Making sure she was on the same page, Mia offered a light nod to confirm with her before leaping off the corner edge of their rooftop vantage point, landing in a rough crash on her heels, tarmac shifting under her hefty, forceful weight, grinning wildly as she opened up her arms to the criminal of the day. “Aw hell man! This is where I get my favourite hats!” She lied, but with a jovial tone to catch their attentions. “I ain’t gonna come back here without a traumatic flashback after seein’ the mess you made!~”

Having been about to raise a hand up to strike the scurrying naked rat beneath him, the criminal froze at the sound of Red Horn’s arrival… briefly fear seemed to fill his eyes, as much of them that could be seen through the hovering fur, but fear soon turned to glee as he realized the opportunity before him. His hovering fur shifted and swayed as he moved, the man beneath it all clearly bald, wearing a loose white tank top and grease stained tracksuit pants. He had a somewhat lanky build but clearly some strength to it all the same. “Well if it isn’t the queen of the freak show! Oh no, wait, you got dethroned didn’t you?~ Shall I wait until that icky little bee lady or that REVOLTING scaly freakshow come to take your place?~”

Mia grinned despite the insults, shaking her head dismissively. She took a step closer, tempting the criminal to do the same. He did, walking past the fur-less man and approaching Red Horn. Mia didn’t give away Angel’s position by looking to her, but hoped the girl knew the opportunity this presented. “Sorry they’re a bit busy handling the press they get I suppose… you’ll have to make do with the less popular… but far more harmful edge of my fist.~” She squeezed her fist tight ahead of her in a strong pose, trying to hold the real freak’show’s attention.

For the hostages of this dire situation Angel's moves were relatively a blur. She wasn't so fast that the rat man couldn't keep up but he certainly never expected what looked like a kid to be moving this fast, leaving him a little dazed as he found himself being carried back into the boutique before he could object much. Being surrounded by the arguably mutiliated bodies of other mutants was a constant reminder of his own fur-less state of being, but he was more than thankful to be removed from the danger as a whole, taking a deep, shuddering breath in an attempt to calm himself, wiggling his body deeper into the corner he found himself in.

When Angel tried to reassure him with who she was here with, his eyes instead widened with alarm however as he fully realized who that other voice outside belonged to. "W-wait Red Horn!? T-there are other heroes coming right!? You can't leave us in her ha-" Angel was likely already on her way back to the fight despite his objections, and with the cars blocking the front, offering more protection the rat man was mildly forced to stick to the role of protecting the other unconscious mutants, his breaths shuddering, hoping to god Red Horn didn't roid out. Despite the public apology and the reasoning that it was some criminals drug that set her off, a large factor of the public, like this man, clearly didn't trust her as far as they could throw her... and given her size that wasn't very far.

---

The criminal turned sharply as the angelic blur blew past him the first time collecting those hostages, growling harshly when a sharp sting met the side of his face. Mia had kicked up a manhole cover and chucked it like a frizbee into the side of his head to keep his attention, a wild white grin on her features as she met his gaze. "So furball. Got a name?~"

The criminal turned back slowly with a wild glare but a confident grin of his own, getting down into a more ready stance for a fight, the fur hovering around his hands seeming to shift as his hands did, mimicking curled claws as he got ready to throw down. "I like to call myself natural selection... you mutants should realize that even as far as quirks go your the more pathetic. Far too obvious, your mutations pull you apart, ostricize you, make it so clear who you are... emitters like me? Even those silly summoners. Or transformations! We don't give ourselves away so easily, and we still hold so much more power...!~"

"So much more eh...?~ Why don't we see about that!?~"

Rushing forward Mia came in with a strong punch. The furball man seemed to have some endurance as he didn't immediatley break. Mia's opening punches were usually held back, helped her test if someone could take her full force but given how much he was pissing her off she'd decided to put an extra 50 percent behind that one, not enough to kill the average human but definitely break a few bones. As he crashed into the wall behind him, he clearly seemed capable of standing, the hovering fur falling from his body as Mia pointed at him with a wild smile. "How's that for the 'lesser quirk' ass wipe!?"

POP

With an almost comical sound effect Mia felt a weight absent from her head, reaching up she stepped back, stunned as she felt a clean, red nub where her horn should be, like it had been shaved down to the base and then it's red casing had healed over the wound. She watched as he de-tatched horn flung towards the criminal ahead of her, hovering infront of his forehead as he wrenched himself from the indent he'd made in the wall, chuckling as it shimmered infront of his bold head, brushing off the fur that had fallen over his body before beginning to blow away with the idle breeze of the street.

"Nice work Red... you played yourself...!~"

Mia growled deeply. Fine. She lost her horn. Didn't mean this fight was over. She rushed in again for another blow, but as she felt a looseness to her limbs, she watched as a hand came up to catch her fist, eyes growing wider still as she slammed another fist forward only for it to also be caught, watching as, with a slimming over her own limbs, the limbs of her foe were slowly growing beefier and bulkier... was he... siphoning her strength!?

"The fuck is your quirk...!?"

"I told you... we emitters are superior...~"

He threw Red Horn's hands down and delivered a sharp kick to send Mia flying across the street like a skimmed stone, colliding with the pavement a few times before rolling to her feet, panting harshly as Angel came back out and landed to her side. Mia still had a lot of muscle to her but she was slimming down and quickly at that, her foe getting equally beefy in turn. She gestured to the stolen horn and, perhaps with a little too much frustration yelled- "YOU DONT SAY KID!!!"