Opening Salvo: Rescuing Homily

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

Amanda calls in Wanda, acting on her promise to help, and she, Doug and Angie find themselves going to the rescue and doing something rather exciting . Well, exciting for someone anyway.





When Amanda had gotten in touch with her and explained the situation, Wanda's first response as she'd jogged out of the meeting she'd been having, had been "We are about to do something very stupid, aren't we?"

Not that it mattered, she mused, standing by the car in the small alley way. This did have to move pretty quickly. "I am just now getting my energy back up," she told Doug and Marie-Ange, "so I will be able to provide back up but I'm not sure how much else."

Marie-Ange flicked a stray lock of hair out of her face and handed Wanda one of the maps that Doug had printed out and then so painstakingly marked with notes and directions. "We accounted for that, and that you might be still recovering with your powers."

Doug grinned mischievously. "Angie wouldn't let me put 'push the right pedal to go faster, push the left pedal to slow down'," he told Wanda with a mock pout. Wanda's driving difficulties were legendary, and Doug was never above poking a little goodnatured fun.

At that, Wanda made a face at him. "I suggested a motorcycle with a side car," she groused, testing the weight of the car keys in her hand, "but I got outvoted."

And they would need something that all four of them could quickly pile into to get away. Out of the group, only Amanda would be safe if something went wrong since she was manning calls at the hotel.

"At least this time you do not have to be called Maid Marian?" Marie-Ange said. "All you should need to do is pull the car into the alley, and then put it into park." She pulled a pair of lightweight leather gloves out of her pocket, and slipped them on, and then handed another pair to Wanda. "The hotel had a gift shop. And I would not want to leave fingerprints, yes?"

Doug's phone chose that moment to shrill. "Can't reach the Trenchcoat Brigade," came Amanda's voice when he answered. "Looks like you're on."

Doug frowned. Not that it wasn't expected, but still, he wasn't wild about the idea of heading out without backup. Their only true heavy hitter was Wanda, and she was still recovering. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to much in the way of gratuitous violence, though. The idea was to get in, stage the break, and get back out with a minimum of fuss and a lack of high-speed car chases with the London police. "Check, Amanda. Stay by the phones in case we need you."

He looked at Marie-Ange and Wanda, all traces of earlier joking gone. "Everyone's clear on the plan, right?" He looked particularly at Marie-Ange. "You sure you're up for an image of this size and magnitude, love?" The plan pretty much hinged on it, but Doug would do his best to try to figure out a backup plan if she said she couldn't.

"I only need to keep it up for so long as it takes you and Wanda to deal withe the officers. I will be fine." Marie-Ange said, but despite her calm words, she was methodically opening and closing the folded piece of paper they'd printed the photograph out onto. This was not like the supports for the monorail. This was detailed, large as life, and she wouldn't have Nathan to talk to. This part was all her.

Wanda smiled and lightly clapped her on the shoulder before she pulled the gloves on. "Everything will work out just fine," she said calmly, heading towards the drivers side. "Though if I hit a trash can on the way out, I will tell you I told you so." Even sitting down, she'd be able to see everything that the other two would do. Perfect.

"That is why we rented the car with one of Remy's credit cards!" Marie-Ange chirped, full of very slightly genuine amusement. She honestly had no idea if Doug had been serious about that or not, but it sounded good, and the little bit of mirth made her less nervous, somehow.

Doug snickered. He hadn't -actually- used Remy's credit cards, but it certainly would have been fun. But it was just as much fun to make Wanda and Angie -believe- that he had done it. He pointed out the alleyway. "Let's get moving," he told Wanda. "Not much time to waste."

***

"You know, Constable, you look like you could do with a cleansing potion. Something to flush the toxins out of your system - all those strange hours and bad cafeteria meals, not to mention the nights at the pub at the end of your shift... they're not good for you. It's why your skin's so dull and lifeless. You should drink more water, too."

Constable Eric Davis grunted and rolled his eyes at the driver, Senior Constable John Cartell. The old bat in the secured back seat had kept this up in the almost-hour trip from the Met (traffic in London was always shite), expounding on the virtues of daily constitutionals, giving up smoking and imbibing what she called her 'tonics' daily. At first they'd replied, but it became clear their prisoner wasn't really on this particular plane of reality and they'd silently agreed to let her ramble on.

"We'll make better progress once we're on the motorway," Davis said quietly to Cartell.

"Maybe she'll fall asleep. Old people take naps, don't they?"

"We can but hope.At least we'll make better time once we hit the motorway. And it's not such a bad job - paid overtime for transporting the Mother of All Hippies to the boys in Lancashire. And it's not like she's Britain's Most Wanted or anything."

"Cultivating dope is a very serious offence, Constable. Bloody hippies - they think just because they can grow it in their backyards it's not really illegal."

"I'll have you know I did no such thing, young man," came the slightly outraged protest from the back seat.

"Fine. 'Allegedly' cultivating dope is a serious offence."

"Thank you."

The old woman - very much the archetypical hippie with her silvered hair worn long and dressed in an earth-toned loose robe-like dress - subsided, staring out the window pensively. Her escorts breathed a silent sigh of relief. Cartell turned into the alley that was part of the route (it was that or spend another half-hour battling through the traffic at the next major intersection) and snorted at the sight of a dark-haired woman trying to reverse a blue Honda into a space.

"Get a load of that, mate," he said with all the contempt of a police officer who had done the driving course. "Bloody woman drivers, eh?"

"Yeah. Makes you wonder how some people pass the test, don't... Jesus Christ!"

Cartell slammed on the brakes.

Marie-Ange was just behind the world's biggest shrubbery in the yard of the world's ugliest house, death grip on the full-color photograph that they'd gotten printed of a gruesome pileup. Bright yellow convertable, wrapped around the single ugliest truck imaginable. The wreck stood out like a beacon. And she thanked God, and all the angels that she only needed to keep the image up until Doug and Wanda gave her the signal. It was big, it was complicated, and it was not even remotely going to be solid. But it would work, and she would hold it up by her teeth if she had to.

Both police were out of the car in seconds, running to the scene. A wreck like that, someone had to be critically injured, possibly even killed. Davis reached for his radio mic, ready to call it in even as Cartell approached the driver's side window...

"Ah ah ah, can't be having that," came a voice from over Davis' shoulder as the arm headed up to the radio was suddenly grabbed and twisted sharply behind him. "I'll have that radio, if you don't mind. And, well, I'll have it even if you do," Doug quipped as he quickly relieved the police officer of his equipment. He looked up at the other, who was staring at the violently sparking mic in his hand in confusion. "Why thank you, Lady Marian," he said with a grin, looking over at Wanda in the car.

"What the hell is going on here?" Davis spluttered, trying to wriggle out of the hold. The pain in his shoulder told him it wasn't entirely a good idea.

"That's what I'd like to know," Cartell chimed in, but in a far less aggressive tone - he was open-mouthed in shock watching the yellow convertible and the truck melting away. "Who are you people and what do you want? You're interfering with police business!"

As soon as the police men were suitably distracted, Wanda took a deep breath and tightened her hands on the wheel. The back doors on police cars were designed to be opened from the outside, obviously, so that the bad guy wouldn't escape. Unfortunately, that's pretty much what they needed right now.

Wanda's powers were able to affect a great many things but, even still, somethings were a tall order. Thankfully there were more uses than making odd things happen at the right time.

Sticking her head out of the car window as she flicked her powers on, readying a small hex bolt to hit the door, she blinked. There was a string that she couldn't really _affect_ but it was like...a weakness, like it would break if something hit it just right.

Well, who was she to say no?

The officers certainly didn't see a light flare of red smacking into the side of the car door, nor did they see their prisoner kick the door open as the insides rusted and cracked. Homily shoved the door open, then paused, bewildered. This was obviously a rescue attempt, but by whom? She'd never seen any of these people - obviously mutants - in her life and whilst she appreciated the help, she wasn't exactly sure what happened now.

The image of a looming helmeted glowing red figure was the last thing Doug expected to see. But he was used to that sort of thing from Angie. Silently, and faster than it looked posible for something that big to move, it grabbed the free officer by the back of his coat, and lifted him off the ground.

The figure looked so real that Doug almost opened his mouth to tell Juggernaut to stash the cops in the back of the car. Then he remembered that he was in England, and that Marie-Ange had created an entire tarot deck full of very lifelike images of the X-Men. So he simply nodded at the back end of the truck to his girlfriend and concentrated on frogmarching his own struggling officer in the same direction.

And thank God she'd brought her hand-drawn deck, because it had her finished drawing of Juggernaut, and drawings of large burly men came in so handy, and it was so familiar that she could control the image without really having to mind it too closely..

She wasn't sure what else to do by offer her arm to the older woman, who was so obviously confused, and try to quietly explain -something-. "We know Amanda, and ... " Marie-Ange started. "There is not very much time to explain, I am afraid.."

"Amanda?" Homily blinked at that, a series of reactions crossing her face but eventually she settled on 'wary relief'. "This is about the Romany, isn't it? I always knew she'd get us all into trouble one day..." She seemed about to launch into another of her rambles.

"We are going to get her out of trouble..." Marie-Ange answered absently. "But we have to get you out of your troubles first, yes, and quickly..." She put a hand at Homily's back firmly. "Wanda should be here with the car... I hope any moment now.."

Fishing his cell phone out of a pocket with one hand as he forced the officer into the back end of the paddy wagon, Doug hit a speed dial number, causing a similar cell phone on the passenger seat of the car Wanda was driving to ring, the prearranged signal to come and pick the pair up.

Hearing that, Wanda threw the car into drive and slammed on the gas, the wheels of the car squealing on the street as it flung itself forward, nearly clipping the side of the wall in the process. Wincing as she managed to hit the brake, car coming to a slow skid so the group running towards her could jump in when she stopped, she sighed heavily.

Learning to actually drive a car had suddenly moved up on her lists of things to do before she got old.

Everyone piled into the car, Wanda shuffling over into the passenger seat to let someone - anyone - other than her drive. Doug slammed the door shut on the police van and jumped into the vacated driver's seat. "And awaaaay we go!" he declared, perhaps a little maniacally as he pulled away, leaving the police behind them.

"Well," Homily said brightly. "This is all rather exciting, isn't it?"

There was a pause and then Marie-Ange added, helpfully. "Perhaps things would be less exciting if you drove on the correct side of the road, Doug."