Michigan Lake Monsters

SOMEWHERE IN CHICAGO, BESIDE LAKE MICHIGAN

Five days ago, a small tourist ship had disappeared out on Lake Michigan, prompting the coast guard and chicago police department to ban all fishing and boats from entering the water. Try as they might, rescue efforts had been in vain- in fact, once some of the rescue divers themselves didn't come back, everyone noped out of the lake, and just told everyone don't go out on the water.

Just this morning, the people of Chicago were treated to the sight of the Korean superhero, Dragon Girl, arriving dramatically at the police press conference. She had gone full hero mode and landed from the sky, if only to entertain their request for a public appearance as a show of confidence. Her appearance was brief as she was eager to go investigate the water. "I will do everything in my power to discover what has happened to your family, friends and loved ones." she stated simply, before flying off and diving into lake Michigan.

She had not yet returned.

Tonight there was a clear sky that allowed the full moon to illuminate Lake Michigan. Near the beach police blockade a crowd had gathered to hold a candle light vigil. The air was cold and the mood was solemn, but some groups in the crowd were singing hopeful songs keep spirits up. As Dragon Girl had gotten involved, the vigil had the presence of an Armored Fighting Vehicle belonging to Chicago's Atypical Threats Services, though even they were taking the cold hard, and the armored troops and uniformed cops alike were sharing donuts and coffee with the crowd. It was quiet. Too quiet.

'One's head in the clouds' was a euphemism for fanciful thought, but Chimney Swift often found he did his best thinking up near the clouds. Ebon-pitched wings carried the dark clad fellow through his steady glide, well-practiced banks and the careful angling of long, flowing tail feathers ensured that while he was a large shadow skimming over the stars to those below... He was a highly maneuverable one. From his vantage, the ink blot in the sky could see countless scurrying shapes below, and those racing vehicles dotted in blue and red proved easy beacons to locate...

Just as well, in the none-too-far distance, a black slate dotted in glittering moon greeted him. Longingly, he stared at the lake-- Noting the location of the candlelit vigil, a warm cluster of yellows and oranges huddled up to the side of the yawning void-- and made motion to bank. One arm up, slowly, the part of his hand that was no longer his hand but wing carefully flexing to angle the long primaries into a splay. Cold wind scissored between his feathers as he lowered his other arm, curling his wingtip slightly. Smoothly drifting out of his glide to perform a wide arc, he returned to the safety of a dark, low cirrus, its' cold dew having its way of seeping through his clothing, in order to find the perfect opportunity to dive, and land, hopefully quickly and hopefully without being paid overmuch attention to.

Already, a deep-set ache was setting into Chimney Swift's chest, but there wasn't much ado about it. This was the fourth time he'd ascended to cloud-level that day, and he'd do it again in a moment to get a refreshed view of what lay ahead of him... The fellow he'd found relied on that to stay unseen on his journey back to the sea.

At least. That's what Chimney Swift assumed. He honestly wasn't completely sure if this thing was liable to just lunge at him and tear a wing off, but. Chim recognized fear when he saw it. And it hurt his heart to see. Carefully-- So as not to startle the fishy... Person.. Question mark...? Chim draped his long trench-jacket over his folded feathered arms, letting the sleeves dangle at his sides as he made quick work of the buttons from inside as he rounded the corner, where he last had spotted The Fish.

"hey...! it's me, it's alright, um-.. they're, going more toward new eastside, if we break for roosevelt road then it's a straight shot, just.. don't take the canal, they're watching it. okay..?" His soft voice rasped as he drew his hood, eyes imploring as they looked to HADAL. He didn't trust getting anywhere near within arms' reach, but speaking afar and carefully gesturing with what capability he could-- arms raptorially bent in order to best jam those long primaries under the bulky, vasty oversized jacket-- seemed to be doing the trick... Hopefully...

"um... there's a candlelight vigil by the shore, and... you can't just rush them, they've got a CATS van, i'mmm... not sure why, so. go around them too. then you're home free. safe and sound." He hoped his desperately offered smile conveyed well to fish-people. Without much more to say, he moved. Being on the ground always had him far more uneasy, but at least a fire escape wasn't ever too far away, and these streets were familiar to him. Wasn't long now, just had to get to the water, and then...

It was a thought that briefly had Chim slowing. Why was he helping this weird Fish? He remembered the fear in its' eye, bulbous and glassy as it was, and... He remembered the shape of the CATS van. Blacked out windows. A dizzying assortment of metahuman-shutdown methods and people who could sometimes be far too quick to use them. He'd heard the stories, and they made his breath catch. He moved all the quicker, not too long into his strides before the candlelit glow was soon ahead of them, radiating from the beach.

The FISH, safe where Chim had found him and still nursing his wounds, was irritably picking at the inside of his mouth when he arrived. An ugly muttering of wet and garbled pseudowords rested under his breath, as if he was complaining to himself— but the more he tried to speak, the more Chimney would just hear the broken-up ‘WWASERRGGRGRLRRLRGLRLR’ that the creature incessantly gargled.

When Chim arrived to check on it, it darted under the nearest table or bed, its massive eye scraping against a bedside as it hissed. It was a terrifying visage staring back at him, the lumpy frog-like fiend baring its teeth with naught but its lantern light illuminating its face beneath. However— it would come out, adjusting its… scales, which somehow formed a belt, and then it would again do that thing.

“URRR NOGHUT FRRRRUYHM ALHAZZRRROORRODDDDDGGGH. URRR LUUUUEEEEEEEERRRRRRR EEEHN SSOOOOORRRIUUUUTHH!!”

But then— he hears of the candlelight vigil, and he looks out the window to see a video-playing billboard showing that someone was in town— someone looking for a sea monster… perhaps it should have alarmed him, but the figure on the billboard makes his non-existant pupils dilate into being, and his lantern raise up with sheer excitement. DRAGON GIRL…

“UUURROOOOOOKAH, RRLESS GOO—“

He scampers out the fucking window, clinging to the wall like a startled spider as he starts to make his way out of the apartment and into the dimly lit rooftops.

He has *content* to gather.

As the evening vigil went on, shapes began to appear on the water. Illuminated by the moonlight, the humanoid shapes slowly walk onto the beach. A handful, then a few, then some more- they slowly crawled then stood, then began walking towards the light and warmth of the crowd.

People began to take notice. Gasps of disbelief and mourners weeping began to overtake several in the crowd, who broke through the barricade despite the police's best efforts to hold them back.

The leader of the CATs on the ground had been busy giving a lecture to the crowd on the importance of human visibility, and the choice to let CATs operatives wear transparent full fiberglass face shields to assure the public that they were there to help. The commotion happening on the beach interrupts the lecture.

Wearing full tactical gear, with a tactical vest, tactical helmet, and tactical non-lethal weapons, complete with tactical bodycams and tactically groomed moustache, Dale was a large, heavy set man who seemed like he knew exactly what he was doing. Never mind that his relatively small private security firm had been chosen to be the city's Atypical Response team, since they were the lowest bidders for federal funding. Their gear was... criminally lower tech than say, the West Coast Task Force.

Speaking into one of his agents' HD bodycams, Commander 'Doug' directed his cameras to the midnight beach goers. "...This is Commander Douglas Dale of the Chicago Atypical Threats response team. An unprecedented even is occuring... it seems... there are people coming out of the water! It has been five days since the missing tourists vanished... in Lake Michigan... but now... Commander Douglas Dale... is on the scene... to make a live feed sitrep. Follow me.

They follow the people onto the beach, seeing that some people had already went ahead to meet the 'survivors', embracing them. Doug radio'd the Armored Transport. "Jim, give us a flare and light up the beach. I want footage of this reunion."

"Copy that, Doug." A voice on his comms responded, and a white flare shot up from the transport, illuminating the beach better. That was the moment when the horrific truth was revealed.

Those survivors coming out of the water weren't alive at all. They were all horrifically rotted away, bloated with gases, and groaned with the chill of unlife. leeches and crabs all kinds inhabited their bodies. The people who received hugs were actually being slowly eaten alive.

"HOO MY GOOOOD ZOOOOMBIES! RUUUUN!" Dale was the first to say the Z-word, and he did it on live stream, with thousands of viewers at home and people at the vigil. He even pushed past his own guys, sending the poor rookie who was a mall cop two weeks ago to the sand.

That was when all hell broke loose...

Chimney Swift's vision wasn't as keen on the ground... Try as he might, pupils in an unnervingly constant aperture-like dilation and retraction, he squinted against the candles' gleam ahead and tensed as the sounds of sloshing water greeted him- People moving into that icy water, but... Why? People moving... Out, too? Nervously, he darted a glance toward the nearby Fish, that hulking shape bobbling over nearby rooftops. He needed to get higher.

Easily, he shrugged off his trenchcoat and rolled it under his arm to stuff into his chest-strapped bag with practiced ease. The rungs of the nearest fire escape ladder drummed beneath what fingers he had remaining as he quickly scaled his way up the side of a building, nary an ounce of hesitation spent in immediately bracing his boot on the side of the building as soon as he could fluff out and orient his feathers behind him, and leapt. A sharp bank, laborious flapping, but the great bird-man began to climb in height. Level with that strange, leaping FISH, then higher still, spiraling up into the black sky so he could peer further out yet and see...

A flash of white, the flare glimmering like a star brought to earth, though the light it cast was anything but idyllic.  Maroon splashes on clothes and skin, darkening that glassy black water further. Bloated, blue-green flesh, sloughing away to reveal the crabs and eels still gleefully picking away at what they could. The undead's blank white eyes as they grazed on what used to be family or friend.

Chimney swift's breath caught, and he plummeted a few feet in shock at the sight. The rush of wind keyed him to his peril and he beat his arms ever harder, dismissing the searing ache in over-strained muscles. He'd feel this one tomorrow... If there would be a tomorrow.

"H-.. HH- HEY." He called out- Terrified of those lights should they swing in his direction, but HADAL had to know. "T-THERE'S.. DANGER.." He rasped, swooping low to share the words with that gurgling monstrosity before his  U-shaped dip carried him higher yet. Wasn't a hero supposed to be here!? It's with a grim moment of.. Realization, that... Perhaps he was supposed to be that hero. ...Nothing quite so terrifying as that thought had occurred to Swift, and yet the words spilled out of his mouth between heaving breaths, "What do we DO!?"

The answer seemed obvious. With one last frantic glance at HADAL, Chimney winged it further -from- the fishy monstrosity to prevent drawing attraction to him, should he still need to get to the water sneakily... Was he.. Fine with those things? Did he know what they were? If he said as much, could Swift even understand him? NOT A CHANCE.

It's with grim purpose that he banked away, getting a good overhead view of the scene, and his voice chafed and rasped against the icy wind that pulled in to make it between gasps, flapping hard. "GET... GET AWAY, THOSE... AREN'T SAFE, THEY'RE ATTACKING..!" Light glinted off of his glossy black feathers. He was within it now, he'd be clearly seen, and his heart hammered ferociously in his chest. Anxiety driven high, he typically couldn't stand being seen without some manner of obscuring the monstrous feathers sprouting from his body, and... Maybe the CATS could just. Handle this, but as long as he stayed out of range of them, he'd be safe, right?... He still had to. Do something. Maybe if the people knew, they'd back off, but God, those things were moving closer to shore... They were extending their rotting hands to grab -more- people. Did that guy just scream 'zombies'?

Oh, Christ.

Catching a good glide, he dropped one arm to quickly pull free something contained inside of a.... Water bottle? Half empty, the crunchy plastic sort, he clutched it in his hand as he splayed out his wings once-more and moved into a carefully low swoop... There was a cluster of them, these 'zombies'. They thankfully had not had a civilian rush up to them yet, slogged and slowed in the icy waters, and Chim knew he had incredibly limited time to pull this off.

Far from arms' reach, and yet still far too close for comfort, with a cry of "GET BACK!" Chim swooped- Cracking the bottle in his hand viciously enough to cause the wax-sealed easter egg within to crack apart, a chemical reaction occurring as cut up tinfoil and aluminum swilled in the bromine and water solution swilled within. Chucking it down, the water bottle landed near the shambling undead at first without much reaction, floating on the lapping waves...

And then the sparks began. Bright, violent ones, that bloomed and the bottle swelled until it burst with a great crack, scattering shards of searing tin just as well as continuing to furiously crackle and spark- A beacon of light on its' own even as some of those glowing motes started to sink under the water. The concussive force may be enough to stagger some of the walking dead- The shards digging into their fleshy bodies leaving smoking burns, little else, but perhaps the light and heat generated from the spot may do something...

Chim was frantic about resuming his height in the night sky. Should his feathers get wet, he wouldn't be able to fly, and being trapped in the black lake where those things had just emerged from was... A horrifying ordeal to consider at the back of his mind. "up-- g-gotta get up- oh God, why... did i have to be here first..?!" He hissed to himself, face contorting in a pained grimace as he climbed the sky and panned, wide eyes looking over the scene below. Where was the Fish guy?

HADAL DIDN'T FUCKING KNOW!!!

That was what his oddly emotive face read at this very moment. He turned to Chim and gave the most panicked and frightened shrug a fish was able to grant. He had just been crawling through the city, eager to-- perhaps-- finally get out of his oddly long-lasting aquatic form and get the autograph of Dragon Girl. Tonight was gonna be chill-- a little tragic, sure, those people sure did drown and that sure does suck. But like, Dragon Girl? Dragon Girl.

At this rate, she was gonna kick some ass and then fly off to deal with some other threat. Not even the time to take a picture, with shit like this...

Though there's another issue. Well, many issues, and Chim can see the arithmetic playing through his head as he scans the crowd from the rooftops. What if he turns bac-- oh, water. Right there. Well, what-- What if there's someone else in the water? Oh-- He'd be in the water, wait, no- that'd be good. He'd kick their ass.

He stops thinking. Then, he confidently nods as he slouches into a posture aimed to leap into action. These zombies came from the deep, obviously, and if there was anyone that could usurp their purpose...

His lantern glows, and he speaks without looking at Chimney. "Hrrrweee willlrr ssen them BACK."

His voice was a -little- more legible. Hm.

When the bird takes off, he does as well. His claws rake through concrete and glass as he leaps from the rooftop and uses the nearby infrastructure as a makeshift fall-break. Citizens scream with horror when he drops into the scene-- his scales glistening in the panicked, flashing lights of a honking truck. A clear gap in the wave of the rushing crowd is centered by him-- and as he moves, bounding like a rabid dog into the candlelight vigil, more are falling and whining in terror.

Normies are so, fucking, scared of everything. It honestly makes him wanna go villain sometimes-- but, on the inside, he knows that's not who he is.

Just like he's not who he's about to say he is.

Chim would spot him rushing into the beachside, appearing to go straight for the water, but as he skirts into the crashing tide and splashes it over himself, it's with a fresh renewal that he's able to summon some eerie power from his lantern. A bright, ghostly blue light begins to resonate on the coast, and the zombies-- hopefully creatures of the deep who would be more attuned to the sway of the Prince of the Deep-- would have to listen to its call.

YOUR PRINCESS CALLS, DAMNED SOULS OF THE LAKE. Long, knife-like teeth grit with apprehension. YOU WILL TURN, screams the voice in the mind of the undead, AND YOU SHALL LEAVE THE LAND FOREVER.

Were Undead immune to this call? Controlled by something more powerful than him? He hoped not.

The Police and CATs were finally getting some semblance of order and began forming firing lines. Bullets began to fly, albeit slowly, as civilians were still in the crossfire. They would have to wait until the zombies were within 10 paces.

Dale, sweating profusely from his sprint, gathered his senses and acted cool, calm and professional- once he had a few bodies between him and the hungry dead. "CATs! Form a firing line! protect the civilians! Check your fire! We've got friendly metahumans helping!" He was shouting, though given the chaos and confusion no one actually heard him.

Armed with conventional assault rifles, the CATs let loose on the zombies, riddling their bodies with dozens of bullets before they went down, only to have crabby surprises emerge to finish the job. Thankfully they took fewer bullets to stop. But there were many more. So many more...

One zombie had managed to make it through and was about to attack a young man. Dale pulled out his own weapon- a shotgun- and went to intervene. His nerve barely held as he fired, but due to forgeting to unfold the stock, the shot went wide and blasted the zombie's brains out. As was the classic solution, this immediately stopped it. The killer crabs emerging from its body were also similarly susceptible to 12 gauge.

Dale was breathing rapidly, his face now drenched with perspiration. This was his first actual combat operation. "C-come on kid! L-Look alive!" He managed to sound off a cool line, saving the teenager and bringing her to safety.

CHIMNEY

Chimney's makeshift grenades proved a fair deterrent. The sea logged bodies that had been eaten away simply fragmented and fell apart, though this revealed a trio of large, malevolent crabs with claws that let them easily rip apart their fleshy transport.

Bright light was also good a good deterrent, as these sea creatures that have lived in eternal darkness scattered, only to compose themselves and rejoin the shambling horde later.

HADAL

Once Hadal attempted to seize control of the dead, a battle of wills ensued. This struggle for control was enough to cause a few of the creatures closest to stop in their tracks and stop attacking.

The will she battled was an alien otherwordly thing. A being of pelagic nightmares, like being tossed into a blender with tentacles, crabs, fish eyes and urchins, and all the other unpleasant things that came from the sea.

Then, a crustacean monstrosity the size of a double decker bus emerged from the water in its dark glory. What seemed like, a giant crab, but with tentacles emerging from the sides of its shell, walked out

Telepathically it reached out, to taunt Rowan. "FOOLISH MORTAL KIN. I SEE YOU. YOUR CHAMPION IS DEVOURED. YOUR WORLD WILL FALL. I SHALL-" If it was possible to fall over mentally from your opponent suddenly pulling away, that would be what happened to Rowan, as more of the dead fell to her sway.

The giant enemy crab shuddered like it was having a stroke, before a particularly Dragon Girly fist emerged from the top of its shell, where its brain would be. Its massive bulk collapsed onto the beach in a massive thud, shaking the ground.

CRACK. CRACK. Dragon Girl, drenched in sea monster gore, crawled out of a hole she punched in the thing's head, gasping for air on the beach. She retched and heaved, understandably. Being eaten by large monsters was never a pleasant experience. "Oh god! air! eeeeckkk!" she gasped, then hurled again.

It seemed, the crisis had been resolved for now, the zombies now standing still and awaiting command. The crabs had seemed to lost their direction, and were now acting on animal instinct, instead of trying to murder everyone they could get their claws on.

Chim shuddered, and it wasn't sheerly from exertion, either. The crack of those guns had his adrenaline spiking high as he beat his wings against the icy winds curling over Lake Michigan. Intrusively, it occurred to him how easy one of those stray bullets could punch through his primary feathers or his fragile limbs, and he made it priority number one to get as FAR, FAR away from them as he could.

Twisting in the sky, he squinted down at HADAL's bright lantern as he cast a beacon of ghostly blue over his immediate vicinity, and the psychic call goes unheard to his land-borne ears-- Though a certain eerie chill still yet carries up his spine. He feels the weight of wills crashing against one another, and seeing those piloted corpses come to a standstill has him catching his breath. His aerial view gave a spectacular sight to the dark shape dredging up from the depths, its' broad, round shell punching through the water, leaving no doubt to what kind of impossible monstrosity had scuttled up from--

"oh, what...?" Chimney finds himself breathlessly exclaiming as the shell fractured, exploding upward in a shower of Crab and Gore. And... A woman crawled free of it, even as the crab's limbs continued to spasm in spiderlike convulsions.

Was that... The woman on the billboards..? Awkwardly, Chim darted his eyes between Hadal and Dragon Girl-- And the CATS crew-- before opting, cautiously, to catch wind against his feathers and SLOWLY soar in to land near HADAL, though with his boots firmly touching down on wet sand. The fish-fellow looked like he needed a little support in his corner if this was about to escalate, though Chim's twisted expression of abject fear clearly told his story- He didn't know WHAT the hell he could do if things did, indeed, get ugly.

Touching down, he kept his broad, 24ft spanning wings broadly splayed despite how it strained his shivering arms to do so- partially to keep his feathers OUT of any lapping waves that crept up by his boots, and partially to show the CATS that he didn't have anything in what remained of his hands, his two fingers and thumbs spread out at the crook of each wing. His voice strained with how dry and tight it had become. "Hhhhhey, is... everyone o-kay..? safety is... the top priority, want to.. make sure everyone's alright, and that it's calm, everything's going to be fine...!" His raspy tone called out as he took slow, calculated steps a bit closer to HADAL.

Mantling near the fish-boy Protectively.

The fish boy, surrounded by now-listless Undead, still felt a little powerless at seeing a giant crab creature curse him out like that, to be quite honest. While he does register what the creature is saying, his mind can only reply with the best counterargument in the middle of the creature's speech, as if laid into the background of the audio file from which it stemmed:

"FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK Y-- oh!"

The creature's telepathy was cut off and Hadal, who had until then been in many places mentally, focused his attention on the woman who was now crawling out of the top of its popped-off skull-- Dragon Girl. In the flesh. One can see the admiration hit him all at once as she just erupts out of the monster and finds it mostly in herself to bitch about the yucky accommodations.

He tried to go over and help her-- but with his control as it was, he wasn't the one that went-- instead, he somehow made the link in his head where HIM going over to help translated to the zombies going over to help-- and now the mind-controlled horde was approaching dragon girl, only they would -attempt- to pat her back-- all of them-- and help her up... assuming they weren't mowed down by both the CATs and, you know, Dragon Girl.

Meanwhile, Chimney comes between Hadal and the CATs, and it's only when he realizes this that he manages to look over the bird boy's shoulder. The fish only -just- notices that he, the Lake Michigan Lurker, is standing in front of a bunch of fully armed CATs right after the attack of an Eldritch Monster in the city.

His scream of fear, in fish form, translates into what sounds like a scream of ass-shattering rage that travels like a wave through the crowd.

The CATs were normal people following orders and procedure, and were as nervous of Chim as he was of them. One fairly small lady in tactical gear with a souped up M4 was the one talking to Chim. “Okay Bird Boy, show me your hands, make no sudden moves! Don’t start anything you’ll regret.” Her name was Darcy, based on her name tag, and she had kept calm and shot zombies in the head all night. She was only five feet high but she was a tough lady. Two other CATs supported her.

June was only just losing the last of her breakfast when she could vaguely sight the zombies coming towards her. She didn’t register their pats and thought they were coming to gang up on her.
She bulldozed the one waterlogged undead in front of her and rushed the fish creature that seemed to have taken control once the giant crab was killed. June was no speedster, but her strength and endurance let her hit cheetah speeds, and was on Hadal quickly. She grabbed him by his arm, a grip like iron.

Up close, June had a cold, dispassionate expression, the expression of a killer, honed from years with hostile sea aliens. She was about to yank Hadal closer and put her fist through his face, when his bio-electric signal registered as very different from the invaders. Then she realized he had come facing the beach, not the land, which meant they came from the people’s side.

June’s grip immediately loosened, and the humanity seemed to return to her eyes and stance. “Oh! Sorry! You’re not one them!” she apologized, realizing she made nearly fatal mistake. She looked around and see the zombies still shambling about. “Um, so could you uh… tell the dead ones to stop?” She asked nicely.

The CATs mustered their nerve and advanced on the metahumans when commander Dale reluctantly joined them. “It’s for the marketing, it’s for the marketing…” he repeated to himself as a mantra. He saw the metahumans around and his guys surrounding them.

“…Dragon Girl. Are you alright?” Dale asked, relieved she did come back. It would’ve been a PR disaster to have her be lost here in Chicago. Yeah, his mind had his priorities straight.

“It’s find Commander…” June looked at her smart watch to quickly identify Chicago’s response taskforce leader. “…Dale.” She finished, making sure to address him by name. “The danger has passed, except maybe for a few stragglers.” She assured the CATs, who quietly breathed a sigh of relief and lowered their weapons. All there was now to do was a mop up of the smaller crustaceans that might pop up every now and then.

Why did Finnigan Ward think that he was brave? He was not a brave man before these feathers had erupted from his body, or his bones hollowed painfully, or his lips began to beak, why would he think he'd be any braver with those monstrous afflictions inundating him now? He wasn't thinking. It wasn't thinking, it was a feeling, a reaction, a sympathetic pull of the heartstrings that now felt like, perhaps, they'd snap under the force of how hard that aforementioned heart was now hammering.

That barrel of the M4 hollowly pointed at him and as he stood there, partially in the dredged lake sand with no way to get good height with any kind of speed, Chimney Swift became keenly aware of his own mortality. All this for a rude-ass fish? His expression fell to one of dull fear, eerie eyes wide and harshly dilated to be mere thin yellow rings that cut through the darkness as sweat ran down the sides of his face. "th- thee-.. these, a-are my hands," He tried to explain, but it felt like his throat was growing tighter by the moment. Without flight as an option, and Fight a far-reach from Chim's nature, that left... Freeze.

He stayed stock-still as he stared at that gun, visibly shaking in fear at the sight of it and the other CATS soldiers. His arms were raised to chest-level, long glossy-black feathers stretched out like how cormorants sunned themselves at riversides- though this was far less leisurely of an endeavor. At the apex fold of his wings, three of his fingers were visible... because only three of his fingers on each hand remained, thumb, index, and middle. His ring finger and pinky had long ago fused and then grotesquely stretched with his mutation to form a longer, sturdier wing-tip, so all he had was those digits left.. And they splayed, what remained of his palms flat, held open. Of course, it would make his massive wingspan all the more intimidating in its' full splay, but hopefully the shaking, weedly man with a face full of fear helped to detract from that image. They think you're a monster. They hate you.

And then, of course, Rowan has to freak the fuck out. The scream seems to travel through Swift's very core, and it breaks through his frozen fear just in time for him to twist and see Dragon Girl advance, face stark with violent intent. The ones that can control it will hate you just as much. Throwing caution to the wind, Chim scrambled abruptly, kicking through 6 inches of water in a bid to try to reach dry land, get height, find something to jump off of or a gust or SOMETHING--

He gets about a step and a half before a fistfull of his primaries are gripped for control, the arm lock twisting up to abruptly force his torso to bend lest he break the wing. Chimney staggered in place and a short kick knocked his leg out from under him- he splashes as he's taken down and then held just above the lake's shallow ripples in about a second and a half by one of the CATS soldiers, flat. It's kind of embarrassing, really. He'd feel embarrassed if he wasn't sobbing hysterically and begging not to go to Pleasant Point.

Dragon Girl's alleviatedly gentle conversation carried on casually as Chim hiccuped and sputtered, finally slowly released somewhere between 'PLEASE I DON'T EVEN HAVE A PASSPORT I COULDN'T EVER GET BACK FROM ANTARCTICA' and 'I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'LL NEVER GO OUTSIDE AGAIN'. The CATS soldier that was holding him just utters a quiet "Jeeeez..." under their breath as Chim collects himself, poorly.

Slowly folding in his wings-- dredging them in lake water in the process, he stays on his hands and knees for a moment as he caught his breath, still hitching on fear-borne sobs. A spectacularly dredged and piteous look directs to Dragon Girl, confusion more than evident.

"Whh-hh -hhh- huuh- whhyyy a-are- are yoou- b-bein-nng nice t-too-tooh us-sss-ss...?" Poor dude was clearly terrified out of his MIND.

It takes a while for the scream to subside. After it starts, it's hard to stop, as the phlegm pushes out a cry which melded an elk's and a whale's into a horrifying cacophony of voices that caused even the undead thralls to grip their heads in pain and fear. When it does subside, though, and Hadal can take a look at the situation, he notices that there's a dragon lady grabbing his arm. His massive buggy eyes are enraptured with admiration that further calms him down, before he realizes what kind of situation he's in.

She grabs onto an arm that's at once slimy and intensely jagged and rough, like rubbing a shark the wrong way.  The arm seems to contort and pulsate, as if its form is unable to truly stabilize into something concrete. And the fish's face? Right next to her? Those teeth the length of forearms and as sharp as needles were jutting out, growling low as the arm gently but firmly pushes away.

He wouldn't be man-handled and arrested for just being ugly. Even by Dragon Girl. Although that would make for a good stream. This was how he was born, and not a moment passed where he'd ever considered the thought of harming another human life.

Until now, anyway, as he glanced at the men pointing guns at a crying bird. Seeing him wallow like that, watching as he-- just a dude with some wings-- was menaced by armed and well-trained thugs as if he was the monster here.

Damn it, if you're gonna be treated as a monster, you better act like one if you wanna survive.

The Undead would turn to look at the guards who pointed their weapons at Chim, and for a moment, it seemed like things would get a little grizzly again-- but their pale, glazed eyes looked away again as Dragon Girl called them off. One by one, each of them made their way to the shore, and languidly sat where the tides lapped at their legs.

He glanced at June and nodded. "Neeeiiithurrrr-- mearrrnnn harrmm. Weeerrrrr arrrurrrr furgghhrends."

He pauses, then adds. "... Irrff ru arrrrur."

In truth, while he put on a lot of menace after that confrontation, he was breathing heavy. Not just because an idol of his is standing right there (He's never washing his arm again), but also because-- well. He can feel the scales sliding behind the skin again. It's not quite yet, but each glance towards the fish may notice that he's just a little smaller each time.