"I'd say we'll see the answer to that soon en- what the devil?" Tom is more startled by the fire than he is by Zed's transformation (he's seen some shit from the X-Men), and the branches and vines surrounding Zed - the ones that haven't been sliced off - recoil. Tom yells. A cry emerges seemingly from a hundred voices, as if each tree around them is howling in pain. Fire races up some of the drier parts of his body, making snapping, crackling, popping noises and giving off a scent that's less like woodsmoke than it is like burning hair.

"Did you do that?" Tom retreats a bit, moving less like a person than like a wave, pulling up the grass around him in a sort of serpentine roll.