Red X Whiteout: Marie and Laurie

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Marie and Laurie are out delivering supplies when they run across some looters.

Laurie watched the snow coming down outside the window of the car, moving her hands closer to the heater to warm up. Marie had asked her to wait in the car while she checked out some suspicious looking shadows crowded around one of the local abandoned shopping malls. If they were just people looking for shelter, they could redirect them to one of the emergency gathering places, of they were looters, well, Marie was more then capable of dealing with that.

Laurie was still new to RedX, so she supposed this was training for her, of a sort. She hadn't had to deal with looters in Hawaai, people were too interested in getting off the Island to want to blow their chances by antagonising the locals. She hoped Marie would return soon, it was creepy here in the car all by herself with only a white wall of nothing outside the windows.

Marie hadn't liked leaving Laurie in the car, but it had seemed like a better idea than having the student follow her. As first one shadow and then another turned out to be nothing more than a dumpster and a few stray animals, Marie chided herself for being so suspicious. Floating slightly over the snow to keep her feet dry, Marie started heading back to the car. Frowning, she put on speed as she saw a couple people approaching the car.

Laurie reached across to the driver's side door and attempted to push down the lock that would lock all the other doors in the car as well but was prevented when one of the looters opened the door and pulled her out. "Well, lookie what we've got here. Where's your Mommy, little girl?"

Laurie stared at the man, a teenager really in something akin to shock. She didn't have anything they could take, why had they bothered her? "W-w-what do you want?" she asked, trying to remember what her RedX training had said to do in the event of an assault.

"How 'bout you leave her alone and deal with me?" Marie said as she finally reached Laurie. She wanted to be cautious, but she eyed the guy holding onto Laurie - she could reach out to stop him, but there was no telling what he and his buddies had up their sleeves and she decided it would be better to try and talk them down first. She tried to shoot a reassuring look at Laurie - no way she would let them hurt her.

"How about you just back off?" replied the thug, pulling Laurie in closer so she was between him and Marie.

Laurie cried out, feeling her arm being wrenched but then she realised he was in direct contact with her, which meant if she could get her power to work, she might be able to get away. Noticing Marie's reassuring look, Laurie gave her a brief smile and then closed her eyes and relaxed back against the man. She needed to think about sleep, and things related to sleep if she was going to get this to work.

Marie saw Laurie's smile and hoped the girl was doing what she thought. She took a step or two until she was between the rest of the looters and Laurie, watching carefully. Once the eyes of the thug holding Laurie started to blink sleepily, the older girl turned her attention to the rest of the looters. "Now boys, Ah understand that this is a difficult time. But what would your mommas think if they saw you out in the streets causing trouble?" She kept her stance open and ready for action, since she didn't know what the looters would do next. "Laurie, honey, you doing ok?"

Laurie opened her eyes, stepping away from the thug holding her as he slumped to the ground, fast asleep.

"I am now." she replied, smiling at the other thugs, who appeared to be getting a little wild eyed at the sight of one of their own simply falling asleep.

"She's a mutie." one of them exclaimed, starting to back away. "Hell, they're probably both muties. Let's get out of here."

"Think you could do that to the rest of them?" Marie asked. "Or would that tire you out?" She kept her eyes on the looters, slowly backing away. They hadn't quite turned tail to run yet, so she could still probably round them all up - it'd just be nicer on them if Laurie put them sleep as opposed to getting a fist to the head. "Ah can do a little round up for you, if you're up for it."

"If I can get a touch on them for enough time, I think I could. I don't have much control over the area effect yet." Laurie replied, her hand going to the air scrubber around her neck. "I could try it though, just worried I'll put you to sleep as well. Although, I could always wake you up after."

"Ah'd think it'd be harder to knock me out, but worse case scenario, just project coffee at me," Marie said with a grin before pushing off the ground. Swooping down, she grabbed two of the looters as the other three scattered. Landing near Laurie, she held the two squirming men by the arms and waited for Laurie to do her thing. There was nothing that bothered her more in a crisis situation than people who took advantage of the situation.

Laurie grinned and placed her hands against the cheek of each looter just to be sure. She closed her eyes, thinking about lullabyes and warm fires on a cold winter night. All the things that always made her want to have a nap. It wasn't long before the looters were sleeping peacefully and dangling loosely in Marie's arms. "There we go, and looks like I managed to get one of the others as well."

Two of them had been out of her range, since she couldn't make the area effect go much beyond her general vacinity yet.

"You've been working on your powers," Marie said approvingly before taking off. Grabbing the other two looters was fairly easy as both still seemed a little in shock that a teenager was knocking them out just by touching them while another slip of a girl flew around catching them. Dragging them to stand by Laurie, Marie waited for her to send them to sleep. "Ah'm so tempted to lash them to the roof to get them back to the authorities."

"We so should." Laurie replied, giggling as she watched the last two looters slump into slumber. "This is so much better then the whole hitting them over the head thing. Although, don't tell Angelo I said that, he's been really good at teaching us the whole self-defence thing. I wouldn't want him to think I wasn't paying attention."

Marie smiled fondly at Laurie, remembering why she liked the girl so much. "You know, hitting folks over the head is a helpful talent to have," she said as she picked up a looter and slung him over her shoulder. "But the way you do it? Smoother. And you can do it unobtrusively if the situation calls for it." She picked up two more looters and then nodded at the car with her head to indicate Laurie should open the door. She wasn't cruel enough to put the men on the roof, but she did plan to just stack them like lumber in the back seat.

"That's true. Plus, they don't wake up with a God awful headache, unless I want them too, anyhow." Laurie replied, opening the door for Marie as she placed the looters in the back seat. She could feel the new snowfall settling in her hair, and she reached up to brush some off.

She'd always loved snow, begging her mother to let her go out in play in it the first chance she got. But this was just a little too much of it, and it wasn't doing anyone any good. She hoped it stopped soon.

Marie quickly gathered up the rest of the miscreants and shoved them in the back of the car. "What say we take them back, grab some cocoa and then go back out to finish what we're supposed to be doing?" Looters hadn't been on their list, but at least their sidetrack had been a productive one.

"I say that's a wonderful plan." Laurie replied, closing the door and moving toward the front of the car. "Cocoa sounds absolutely devine after all this cold."