ic Freedom's Finest #1: Cat Scratch Fever

[Mad Scientist]

Time seemed to slow a trifle as adrenaline kicked Wildcat's perceptions into a higher gear.  Undoubtedly, their foes' plans wouldn't go off as intended if that bomb was detonated, but there was no guarantee that none of the toxin would make it into the water system regardless.  Not to mention the damage to the water plant. 

Plus, y'know, he didn't really want to get blown up. 

Without a word he pounced, springing in a standing leap that cared not a whit for protecting himself from any counterattack. He slammed into the bomb-laden scientist and drove them both to the floor, pinning the man's wrists safely away from the detonator and using his own body weight to render him immobile. 

His eyes flashed amber in the artificial lighting, and a bubbling growl rose up low in his throat.

[Gizmo]

The smaller man struggled with the fervor of genuine madness against Wildcat's pin but even without the enhanced strength of his powers there would have been little danger of him escaping. That didn't stop him from shouting abuse and slurs at his captor along with a sizable dose of largely incomprehensible ravings.

Letting out a long breath, Jill shifted her force field from protecting the uncovered water supply to shoving the barrels of toxin into the far corner of the room with a broad wedge. "Dios. Quick moves, Kitty." Boots clomping against concrete, she walked around to stand in front of the two men wrestling on the floor, shaking her head before kneeling down and poking a glowing finger into the madman's forehead. With a groan he promptly passed out, drooling from the corner of his mouth.

"Alright, now we call for help." Lifting the cuff of her crimson jacket to her mouth the masked medic spoke into a communicator tucked inside. "Vince, I'm going to need a bomb squad at my location and a couple squad cars if you can swing it. Mooks made a run for it but I have to keep an eye on things here."

[Mad Scientist]

Wildcat very nearly, quite disturbingly nearly, snarled and snapped at Jill as she 'interfered' with his 'prey', rendering the mad scientist unconscious.  He prevented himself from doing so just in time, but the strength of the urge to defend his claim was almost overwhelming.

"...don't call me 'Kitty'," he rasped, instead, pushing back from the now-docile man and rising to his feet.  He wanted to offer to go run down the goons who had fled, but the intensity of that urge frightened him more than a little, and so he held his tongue.  It seemed that while a good physical altercation was a way of letting off steam, whenever he delved too deeply into his unusual senses he started to get a little too in touch with his more feral side.

He...was going to have to figure out how to deal with that, and soon, before he went further than he intended to.

"Uh, thanks.  For shutting him up," he added, his voice returning to something more like normal.  "Ethnic slurs are bad enough, but this was sure something else."

[Gizmo]

"Preaching to the choir," the Latina lesbian drawled, putting a dome shaped force field around the unconscious man rather than risking trying to remove his bomb vest before the experts could arrive. That done she gave Wildcat a look that made it clear his little lapse in control hadn't gone unnoticed even if she seemed uncommonly unconcerned about it. Considering for a moment, she reached into the back pocket of her black pants and produced a small white rectangle of cardstock, then rummaged around in her crimson jacket for a pen. "Here," she told the feral rookie as she scrawled an address on the back of the card before handing it to him. The front side was dominated by an embossed capital letter I with a phone number printed underneath it in an off-white that was only readable from certain angles. The address written in quickly drying red ink on the reverse side he recognized as belonging to a street in the West End. "You run into something you need backup on, give the number a call," Jill explained, folding her arms across her chest to make it clear that it had better be a real emergency if he took her up on the offer. "The address if for a self-defense school in the neighbourhood. They offer... advanced classes, might help you get a handle on that tabby rattling your cage. Or not," she added gruffly, with an airy wave. "I'm not your mother."

[Mad Scientist]

The instinctive rejoinder of 'you're not my mother' died on his lips as Jill beat him to the punch, which didn't do a damn thing to make him feel any better.  The fact that she was right about his state of mind didn't do anything more either.

"...I'll keep that in mind," he agreed grudgingly, wondering if he needed to get himself a set of business cards made up, the way that these femme fighters kept handing them off to him.  Not that he could imagine many situations where they'd feel the need to call on an only somewhat-housebroken punk-puncher.

He looked over the front of the card.  Espadas School of Self Defense and...Swordsmanship?  Who the heck used swords these days, other of course than Jack of All...

The masked young hero glanced up at Jill for a moment.

...nahhhh.  That would be just way too sloppy on her part, were it true.  The sharp-edge crowd likely just all kept tabs on one another, like some kind of elite fraternity, no doubt.