Mutants and Molotovs: Keeping the Peace

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Early on, Sam and Shiro are scouting for the team from the air, and have a brief confrontation with a pair of mutants caught in the riots.


Three hours past midnight, and the streets were still choked with people. From the sky, it was as if some sort of many-tentacled monster had taken over downtown Seattle, reaching down every street and leaving damage everywhere it touched. The riot police could be seen here and there, attempting to cut off or disperse larger groups, but they were seriously outnumbered. Apparently National Guard units were in the process of being deployed, but there was no sign of them yet.

"Where in the Sam Hill is the National Guard?" Sam asked tersely over the comms. It was a measure of his frustration that he used even the mild interjection. If things got much worse, he might just have to start using words that would send his momma for the soap bar if she were here. He spared a quick prayer of thanks that his momma _wasn't_ there, because the good lord only knew how long it was going to take to get this riot under control, and how much damage would be caused in the meantime. "Cyclops, any word?" he asked.

Idiots, all of them. Only Westerners would think that throwing what amounts to a violent and destructive temper tantrum would get things to turn out the way they want. Shiro rolled his eyes, surveying the devastation from the sky. He offered a quicky prayer to the Seattle district attorney's office, because damn would they all deserve raises and lots of vacation once they prosecuted all of the rioters. The money could be taken from the salaries of all the police who should be fired for not preventing this, he thought mockingly.

~They're on their way,~ came Scott's voice on the coms. ~Feed us as much detailed information as you can from up there - we need to get a sense of the bigger picture, and the telepaths are having a hard enough time keeping their own shields up.~

"Wilco, Cyclops," Sam responded, swooping down lower between buildings. He was glad his comm automatically filtered out the noise of his blast field, so he didn't wear out his voice trying to talk over it. "Riot police are falling back toward...Dexter and Newton," he continued, a rock thrown form the crowd evaporating harmlessly off of his blast field.

~Roger. You'll probably see the Guard before we do.~

"Do they have a mutant-control corps?" Shiro said to Sam, the question accompanied by his usual derisive snort. "This is ridiculous. Anyone down there could caused more destruction than we have already seen altogether. Is the National Guard equipped to handle this situation?"

"No offense, Shiro, but could you keep the editorial comments to a minimum?" Sam asked, slightly snippily. Watching the rioting crowds spill down Seattle streets like some sort of bizarre amoeba was a little unsettling. He could just barely hear the wails of sirens, as well as the noise the crowds were making, above the roar of his blast field. Which was a testament to how loud it must be down there on the streets themselves.

There was a streak of light shooting upwards from the crowd, suddenly, and Shiro and Sam found themselves faced by a young woman with glittering blue hair that matched the energy nimbus surrounding her. She was gazing at them, wide-eyed. "Police?" she demanded incredulously. "Mutant police? What the hell?"

Shiro raised an eyebrow. "Conctractual services," he corrected. Her wide-eyed reaction could mean one of two things: either she'd realize the gravity of the situation and flee the scene, or she'd get angry at "race traitors" and do something she'd regret. "You really ought to return home," he suggested.

"You're younger than I am," she said angrily, light spilling off her, brightening. "And we didn't start this, damn it, it was the FoH."

Shiro didn't flinch, although the coat of gold fire that he wore burned brighter. "I've no doubt," he replied sneering. "But you really do not want to continue it."

Another member of the crowd soared upwards to join them, a young man with no personal lightshow. "Maya, leave it alone," he said edgily, his eyes flickering to Sam and Shiro and then back to the young woman. "We should try and get back to the hotel-"

"Oh, shut up, Jim! You don't get what this means, do you?" she demanded. "If they brought in mutant specialists they expected us to get out of hand." There was a vicious sort of sarcasm in her voice as she looked back at Sam and Shiro. "Fucking Uncle Toms..."

"We hoped that no one would cause trouble," Shiro corrected her, "But it does not take a genius to know that, er, vocal mutants and Friends of Humanity in close contact is asking for disaster. We just hoped that you would be wise enough to not get involved. How disappointing that you proved us wrong."

Maya's hands clenched into fists, the blue light paling and brightening. "So what were we supposed to do? Roll over and play dead? Run? I'm fucking sick of running and hiding from idiot flatscans who feel threatened, I'm sure as hell not going to start running because they're in a crowd so they feel brave!"

Shiro looked at Sam and raised and eyebow. "Are they always this obstinate and blind?" he asked before turning back to the girl. "If they instigate this? Then you have the higher moral ground. You are more dangerous to the future of mutant rights than we are. If you sacrifice that moral ground to get a few hits in, then you condemn everyone."

Sam was able to get the gist of the argument over Shiro's comm. Sadly, it was well-nigh impossible for him to communicate back with the woman over the roar of his blast field. Not to mention it took most of his concentration to stay relatively stationary in midair. "Kamikaze, _please_ don't rile her into anything," he murmured into his comm. "She's high-strung enough as it is."

"I hardly think that there is anything anyone can say, barring the threat of physical violence, that could dissuade her," Shiro replied, eyes locked on the girl. If her power was an icy glare, then he'd be encased in a block of ice, fire powers or not.

"Oh," Maya said with withering contempt, "so you're not just stooges. You're thugs."

"Maya, for God's sake, shut the fuck up!" her friend exclaimed suddenly, and she shot him an incredulous look. "I didn't come here to pick fights with other mutants!"

Sam grimaced. Just because he couldn't really hear or talk over his blast field didn't mean he couldn't hear over Shiro's comm, especially as loud as this Maya person was being. "Kamikaze, please tell Maya that we ain't here to pick fights either. We are simply here to help the police keep the peace. And _please_ do your best to be nice. Takin' little verbal potshots at her ain't gonna accomplish anythin'."

Shiro nodded. He was growing weary between the lack of sunlight and the idiots that surrounded him. "We've no interest in bullying anyone," he repeated to the girl. "But you see what is happening below us. Our sole interest is to make sure that no one is hurt, mutant or human." He looked over his shoulder at Sam and asked into his comm: "Is that nice enough?"

"Maya," her friend grated. "Come on, we've got no excuse to be here, we can fly out if we have to..."

Maya looked at Shiro with something close to open loathing, and then took off, vanishing in a streak into the western sky. Her friend lingered for a moment, giving Sam and Shiro an apologetic look.

"Sorry," he said briefly. "Bad night."

Sam waited until Maya and her friend had gone before turning to Shiro. "That was very well handled," he said simply. "Ah know it ain't easy ta deal with someone as wound up as she was. Ya did a good job."

Shiro was not expecting to be complimented. He was sure that after Sam's warning, he'd pretty much committed them to getting involved in something nasty. So Sam's words came as a surprise, which showed clearly on his face. "Anou, thank you. I had been expecting the worst. But I will do better next time."

Then Scott's voice was on the com again, asking for another report on the aerial view, and the time for discussion about tactics was past.


~*~


Doug and Marie-Ange, accompanying one of the riot squads, help defuse a situation that could have turned very ugly very fast.


"Do you have any idea what language they're speaking?"

The question was from the sergeant in charge of the riot squad Doug and Marie-Ange were working with, and was laden with frustration that would have been obvious even if the officer hadn't been clutching his baton as if he was half-wanting to disperse the small group of protestors first and ask questions later. There were thirty or forty of them, three or four times the size of the riot squad, and although they were all Caucasian-looking, none of them seemed to speak English. They were chanting in their own language, occupying the center of the deserted street, with one of their number clearly whipping the others up.

Doug ran a hand through hair that had gotten progressively more mussed throughout the night. He may have been a night owl, but between the fact that most everyone had been running on caffeine and adrenaline for hours now, he was approaching exhaustion. But he'd keep going as long as he had to. "They're Serbian," he replied distractedly. The protestors were getting more and more riled as the leader screamed, echoed periodically by the chanting of his observers. In a clinical way, it was fascinating to watch the body language of the group simmer, growing more and more agitated like a pot of water heating up. They weren't violent. Yet. But the problem was, sooner or later (probably sooner), it was going to boil over, unless something could be done. "You might want to do something about that guy, because he's getting them pretty agitated, but I'm damned if I can figure out what to do that won't just result in them going crazy anyway," he continued, his mind racing through options. The riot squad obviously had much more experience with this sort of thing, but analyzing possible courses of action was how Doug was keeping himself from curling up in a gibbering little ball in a corner somewhere until the whole thing finally ended.

"More barriers?" Marie-Ange asked. Truth be told, she was getting tired of blocking off groups, blocking off agitators and seperating wildly violent protestors from the potentially-violent ones. At this point, it was not so much whether the people were violent or not, but the degrees of violence that were, or would, happen.

The sergeant rather visibly took two deep breaths, and the impatience and frustration drained from his body language as if by magic. "Let's try diplomacy first," he said to Doug. "Are they pro-mutant, anti-mutant, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

"I think we can safely rule out them being just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Doug snorted wryly. "And judging by that guy," he indicated a young man with brick red skin and an extra pair of arms, chanting along with the rest, "I'd say promutant. Tough to tell from how lathered the leader is. I can barely make out anything with the way he's spraying spit every other word." The leader was dripping sweat from the way he had been frantically flailing his arms for the past half hour, and the first few rows of his attendants didn't even notice the spray, they were so raptly hanging on their leader's words.

"All right. We'll try and talk to them, then. Going to need you to translate for me." The sergeant gave Marie-Ange a thoughtful look. "Can you follow along behind the two of us, give us a bit of a show? Enough to prove that you're a fellow mutant?" He actually smiled, something that he hadn't done very much since they'd headed into the thick of the rioting. It gave his craggy face a much less intimidating aspect. "I just want to make them stop for a second. Buy us the chance."

As tempting as it was to just suggest that she provide the crowd with umbrellas, Marie-Ange nodded, and held back her instinct to be sarcastic. She wasn't so tired yet that she couldn't hold her tongue when necessary. "I think, nothing scary, but definitly large, to make sure they can all see it.." Perhaps one of the more-clothed representations of Mother Nature, she thought. Something obviously not hostile.

As the trio inched their way closer to the crowd, Marie-Ange slipped a card from one of her pockets. The large image sprang into existence, drawing the eyes of the crowd, including the leader, who turned completely white eyes on them. Though unsettling, he could obviously see through them, as he focused on Marie-Ange. "Sister!" he called in heavily accented English. "Come! Join us!" He spared a frown for Doug and the sergeant, but made no overt effort to incite the crowd toward them. Doug sighed to himself, wishing for the hundredth time that genetics could have possibly given him a more visible mutation for situations like these.

"Tell him that he's got to break this up," the sergeant said with a sigh. "If he doesn't, we're going to have to insist. Stress to him that I don't want to do this, please?"

Marie-Ange shook her head at the white-eyed leader, pointing towards Doug and the sergeant. She wasn't going to get any closer, if she could help it, in fact. Trying to keep out of direct sight, she moved closer to her image, using, the vines and flowing robes of the nature-goddess card she'd solidified to try to block her hands from view. If this got violent, she wanted to have a few mroe cards at hand, just in case.

"~Brother,~" Doug said easily, intentionally mirroring the man's usage, "~we understand why you are here, and we are sympathetic. But please, we implore you to calm yourself and your friends. This man,~" he indicated the police officer, "~may not be one of us, it is true, but he has a duty to protect everyone in this city, whether mutant or not. This is a volatile night, and some have already resorted to violence. Do not let your friends do the same.~" He spread out his hands nonthreateningly, waiting for the man's response.

The leader's eyes widened at Doug's usage, and being addressed in his native tongue. "~Brother,~" he used the term tentatively, still unsure as to whether Doug was in fact a mutant, "~how is it you speak my language? You are American, yes?~"

Doug nodded, concentrating on looking as non-threatening and conciliatory as he could. "~It is my power. I am gifted with the ability to speak and comprehend any language. Not flashy, true,~" he said with a self-deprecating smile, "~but it proves useful on occasion.~" He waved a hand to indicate the buildings of the city as a whole.

Marie-Ange spared a glance over at the sergeant, who had taken a small step back, to let Doug talk. "I could use about half a dozen of him, you know?" he said. "We never have near enough translators on hand, and never in the right languages. Japanese when we need Spanish, Spanish when we need Farsi, it never ends."

In response, Marie-Ange nodded. "It has been helpful more than once... " And again, she was reminded of Asgard, and how well Doug had slipped into the culture and society there. Why was Odin on her mind so much lately, she wondered.

The simple fact of being addressed in his own tongue (and his own accent, which Doug had picked up from listening to the man) had done much to put the leader of the crowd more at ease. He nodded to Doug. "~To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good,~" he quoted. "~To one various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues,~" he skipped ahead a bit. "~Truly God has blessed you with a wondrous ability, mundane though it might seem, brother.~"

Doug tried his best not to redden in embarassment, or roll his eyes to Marie-Ange as he was suddenly reminded of her mother. "~Brother, we understand you are here to be seen and heard, and to be a counter to those like the Friends of Humanity, who are so hateful.~" he addressed the leader. "~But here and now, there are those who have resorted to violence against their fellow men. It is no longer safe. Marie-Ange and I, as well as others, are here to help the police restore peace. We should help get you and your friends back to a place of safety so that nobody is hurt.~"

The leader looked a bit skeptically at Doug. "~We are not here to cause trouble in any way. But can the human police truly be trusted?~"

Doug nodded firmly. "~They can. Not all non-mutants are out to cause us ill, brother,~" he said in a tone of gentle rebuke. "~To everything there is a season, and a time for everything under heaven,~" he quoted. "~And right now it is time to see all of your friends safe and sound.~"

Seeing members of his group nodding their head thoughtfully, the leader stepped down from the box he had been standing on and moved to Doug. "~Then we shall place ourselves in your hands, and the hand of your friend the police officer,~" he said, offering a hand for Doug to shake. "~If you could help us get back to our hotel, it would be most welcome.~"


~*~


Bobby, working riot control with the police, is called upon to help corral a hydrokinetic bearing some striking similarities to an old friend.


The two marauding feral-types had been taken away in handcuffs, snarling irritably curses and shivering. The squad of riot officers Bobby had been working with had moved in while he was occupied with the two mutants and successfully dispersed the small group of rioters who'd been following them, enthusiastically sharing in the orgy of property damage. The squad had regrouped and the officer in charge was radioing back to the command post for further instructions when there was a shout.

"Hey! Drake! You're Drake, right?"

The person calling his name was a riot-gear-clad police officer sitting on top of a very large horse that clattered up to the group, stopping. The rider, an older man - mid-thirties from the look of him - had a jagged cut on his cheek that obviously hadn't been seen to, and although he was composed, there was a definite look of urgency in his eyes.

Bobby looked up and nodded, making his way over to horse and rider. "Yeah, that's me. What's up?"

The officer took a deep breath and nodded to Bobby's squad leader. "We've got some kid blowing shit up about twelve blocks west of here -and by 'shit' I mean water mains." He offered Bobby a hand. "I can get you over there fastest, I think."

Bobby reached for the officer's hand, already trying to formulate ideas on how to handle it. Water mains shouldn't be too difficult for him to control, but... "Blowing them up?" he asked, hoping for clarification. It wasn't exactly your typical looting practice, due to the complexity of attaching explosives to underground pipes. Mutant, then. The question became what this kid's power was. TK? Incendiary ability of some kind?

The officer pulled him up behind him in the saddle and urged the horse onward. "Just... geysers of water," he said helplessly. "Hydrants blowing off, that kind of thing." They moved swiftly through the streets, most people scattering as they saw the horse coming. The amount of property damage was perfectly obvious.

Bobby surveyed the areas as they rode through, taking a few deep breaths as they approached the area. Flooding, water geysers -- yep, this was his kind of situation, all right. He took a few deep breaths, concentrating, and went to work while still on horseback, capping the spraying mains with large ice caps, then started building up low ice walls, diverting the water into storm drains, even as he kept his eyes peeled for the perpetrator of the damage.

The police officer was emitting various incredulous muttered compliments as they crossed the twelve blocks far faster than would have been possible on foot. "There!" the officer said, freeing a hand from the reins to point at a solitary figure walking slowly down the street, almost strolling, his back to the horse.

As the young man walked, the pavement around him buckled, water pushing its way up from beneath as if he was calling it to him.

"Let's get this party started, then," Bobby muttered, sliding from the horse and trying not to feel his tiredness. Stupid rioters.

"Hey!" he called out, striding after the boy, one hand extended toward the street, palm down as he froze the water trying to escape from the underground pipes. "Haven't you ever heard of water conservation?"

The hydrokinetic turned towards him, and Bobby found himself faced by a sandy-haired young man who appeared to be a year, tops, younger than him, and who was wearing a look of such weary discouragement that it wouldn't have been unsurprising if he'd broken down in tears right then and there.

"Screw water conservation," he called back hoarsely. There was a smear of blood on his cheek, and more on his clothes. "They want to see a dangerous mutant, I'll give them a dangerous mutant." A hydrant exploded, flying meters into the air, and the police horse made a protesting noise, trying to sidle backwards.

Bobby's breath caught in his throat, struck by the similarity in the man's attitude to John almost as if it had been a physical blow. "...That's not a good attitude to have," he said quietly after taking a moment to recover, capping the new gush of water with an absent wave of his hand as he stepped closer. "Trust me. I nearly lost...a friend to thinking like that."

"Oh, yeah?" The bitterness in the other mutant's voice almost had a life of its own. "Well, for all I know, I might have lost a friend today because we were stupid enough to show up here to... to play fucking Gandhi or something. Whatever you want to call it." The pavement around him groaned and buckled. "She wasn't breathing when they put her in the ambulance. Half a dozen fucking... flatscans," he spat the word, "beat the shit out of her because she has blue skin."

"And so you have to be as stupid as they are?" Bobby reasoned, glancing around and trying to minimize damage even as he tried to talk to the young man. "Come on. Is this what she'd want you to do?"

"I really don't care. I'm sick of trying to be better than them." Water exploded through the pavement to his left, and he turned away, looking around as if seeking out more water sources.

Bobby growled and iced over the latest explosion, with a bit more force than necessary, sending a shower of ice shards to the ground from the now-frozen geyser of water. "I can't let you do this," he said quietly, stepping forward and mentally preparing himself to encase the kid in an wall of ice, feeling as if he'd failed him. Again.

The kid blinked at him, shaking his head a little as if he was having trouble focusing. "Who... you're not police," he said, studying Bobby's leathers and the 'Police' surcoat atop them. "You're too young to be a cop."

"Uh, no. I'm with...a private agency, helping the police out," Bobby answered cautiously. "What's your name?" he asked quietly, hoping to make some kind of connection.

"Arthur." He winced, one hand going to the back of his head, and Bobby saw him sway a little. "I didn't... I didn't want to be here," he burst out suddenly, sounding aggrieved. "But there wasn't room in the ambulance..."

Bobby held out a hand to him. "I'm Bobby, Arthur. Why don't you come with me, and we'll see if we can find out how your friend is?" And get him checked out, as well. He didn't seem to be doing so good.

"I don't... even know where they took her," Arthur protested weakly, and then stumbled, losing his balance for a moment.

Crap. Bobby leapt forward, sliding an arm around the other boy, and glanced back at the cop on his horse. "Where's the nearest first aid station?" he called out, trying to examine Arthur himself. There was the cut on his cheek...

The cop chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then looked down the street. "Ten blocks that way. No way you can make it there carrying him - can we try and get him up here with me?" The question came with no hesitation, as if the cop hadn't just seen Arthur trying to do his best to flood downtown Seattle.

Which is good, because Bobby probably would have carried the guy on his back if the cop had balked, and he was already tired from hours of this, with no end in sight--he'd be little good to anyone if he had to lug another person ten blocks on his own. He half-helped, half-dragged Arthur toward the horse, murmuring, "We'll get you looked at, come on..."

"I just want to go home, damn it," Arthur muttered almost brokenly.

The cop's expression actually softened a little as he helped Bobby get Arthur up on the horse. "You're just a kid," he said. "Shouldn't have been in the middle of this in the first place." He eyed Bobby measuringly. "Can you take care of this," he said, inclining his head at the water, "and get back to the squad you were with?"

Bobby brushed a damp lock of hair back from his forehead and nodded, giving Arthur a quick smile. "Hey," he added, turning back to the cop as almost an afterthought. "Try and get him set up with someone who can help him check on his friend? He's worried about her."

"Will do." The cop nodded to him and then urged the horse forward at a more sedate pace to accomodate the half-conscious teenager in front of him.

Behind Bobby, the street began to fill steadily with water from the broken main.

Turning around to survey the mess, Bobby sighed and rubbed his hands together. Time to get to work.


~*~