xp_logs | Kaiten: Silenced

Things go from bad to worse at the UN, and a number of mansion residents are caught up in it. A speech does not get made, but Angelo may have caught a break.

It could only have been expected. That would be the consensus of the various news pundits later that evening. Given all the many reactions to the February bombings, so many of them so vehement, bringing one of the central figures in the whole tale to New York City for a very public appearance had been destined to provoke some sort of extreme reaction.

The authorities had not, however, expected quite this much of a crowd. Three crowds, really, each dominated by a different political viewpoint, if the signs and banners they were carrying were to be believed: anti-mutant, mutant supremacist, pro-integration. The three crowds had started to converge nearly an hour ago, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that there were not enough police on-site to keep them properly separate.

More were coming, of course. But they weren't there yet, and in a situation like this, a great deal could happen, even in the space of a single minute.

--

"I am," Ash said, "so very, very tempted. You have no idea." They were in the middle of the militants, had been right from the start, and Ash and her friends seemed to be in their element. She smiled brightly across the police lines at a group of FoHers, and her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. "It would be so easy..."

Angelo glanced that way, and even he - in and out of character - had to admit the idea wasn't completely unattractive. But only as an idea. "Sure," he drawled, "so easy to get the riot squad out here tramplin' over every mutant they can see."

"I could take care of them, too." She met his eyes for a moment, and the terrifying thing was that there was nothing that even smacked of humor or bluster about the look on her face. She was deadly serious. "Easily. It would make a very good point, don't you think?"

That got a considering look - and it was all "Miguel" now - before he shook his head regretfully. "Too high-profile. Especially here. You'd have your face all over the city inside the day, an' probably the rest of us too."

"They should be afraid of us," she said, looking back at the FoH, "and we shouldn't be afraid of reminding them of that... but you're right. That would kind of be throwing the dice for real, wouldn't it? And it's not time yet." Her expression changed, becoming almost serene, even as the people around them shouted insults across the police line at the FoH.

"The day'll come," he agreed, producing a pack of cigarettes and lighting one. "You've just gotta choose your battles. There's other things to do here today."

--

Medusa pulled the brim of her hat lower, her red hair carefully concealed beneath it, though honestly the nearby presence of a not-so-invisible bodyguard was drawing more than a few stares. "~Perhaps we should have ditched him,~" Medusa said to Crystal, "~though I do not think that Mother needs another heart attack this year.~"

Medusa's green eyes were quickly drawn to a man waving a sign about in the air. Shaking her head, she turned her attention back to Crystal. "~Down with Humankind? You would think they would have developed a more creative slogan.~"

Crystal hadn't even bothered trying to hide her face or her hair. For one, her blonde hair was nowhere near as noticeable as her sister's extremely red tresses, and for another, Medusa was right; having Jackson nearby negated any sort of disguise. The more you tried to hide, it seemed, the more people noticed.

"~We already did that earlier this week,~" Crystal whispered to her sister, referring to their secret visit to Silver. "~Perhaps we will try it again, but it would have been hard to prevent him from joining us here today.~" Crystal glanced around, reading the various slogans on the signs, each one less impressive than the one before it. "~Not a very polite, creative, or enlightened group, are they?~" she observed, eyebrows raised slightly as her eyes rested upon a sign proclaiming "Time's Up, Humans!"

"~They are better than the other group,~" Medusa replied, gesturing towards another group of people, these with signs reading 'Beware the Mutant Menace' and other uninspired slogans that she could just make out in the distance. She frowned as she realized that several of the signs were growing closer.

--

Ash took the cigarette Angelo offered, lighting it with a snap of her fingers. "Plenty to do here today," she agreed. "And hell, if we have some opportunities present themselves in the course of things - why not take them?" She gave him another one of those alarmingly winsome smiles.

Seabourn pushed up through the crowd to her side, eyeing Angelo suspiciously before turning his attention to Ash. "Ash? It just hit me. We could fuck with them, just a little... wouldn't have to be anything overt." His smile was nasty. "Ultrasonics would do nicely." Ash looked thoughtful, cigarette paused halfway to her mouth as she weighed the option.

Angelo was looking at Seabourn just as mistrustfully until he spoke, then his expression turned to a sharp-edged grin. "No easy way to track where it came from, either. I like it."

"All right," Ash said abruptly. "Get into a spot where you won't take out any of our people by accident and have at it." She smirked. "No need to spare the cops, either."

"Got it." Seabourn melted back into the crowd, and Ash leaned forward, gazing farther down at the third group of demonstrators.

"I don't know what's worse, the flatscans or the sellouts... 'can't we all just get along?'" she said in a falsetto voice, then laughed, scornfully, before she brought the cigarette to her lips.

Angelo followed her eyes, but it was "Miguel" giving them a flat-eyed stare. "Wonder if they'll be happy when we're all in camps or bein' "put to use". If we're still around. If Smichov can happen once..."

--

This was as close to a disaster in the making as Nathan had ever seen, and that was not him descending into pessimism, that was simply being realistic. He stood at something of a remove from the three competing groups of demonstrators, but even if he hadn't been a telepath he wouldn't have missed the undercurrents, or the visible signs that hostilty was building.

The movement of the crowd was the most worrying thing. The three groups were coming together, slowly but inexorably. It might be step by step, but they'd get there. There were riot police on horses approaching in the distance distance, but Nathan wasn't sure it was going to be enough - especially if there were any mutants among the group waving 'Magneto was right' banners and the like.

He needed to find Medusa and Crystal. At least in a crowd like this, he could look for the quiet spots, pick them up by their shielding. As he started to concentrate, however, he was startled to realize that they weren't the only three mansion inhabitants at the UN today.

#Tommy?# he projected, hoping he didn't scare the crap out of the kid. #It's Nathan.#

Tommy had been talking with a youth representative of a co-living group called 'Unity Blue' that he'd corresponded with often when he had been in the FoH. He'd met up with a lot of his old contacts in the 'middle ground' groups who hadn't believed his recent e-mails, thinking it was a cruel hoax, as they all had thought he was dead thanks to the rumors spread by Duncan and the other FoHers. Now, a few transformed coins later, they believed that it was him and what had happened. In fact, he was already talking to many about future plans. It also helped that he'd spent most of his time among them, staying as far away from the large Friends of Humanity turn out as possible.

Suddenly hearing an unexpected voice in his head didn't necessarily scare the crap out of him, but he did pause for a moment in his conversation and look around. He asked the other youth if they could continue their conversation later and Tommy walked a bit away from the others. "Nathan?"

#I'm sorry.# It was a brief apology, as far as apologies went - but he honestly didn't know what Tommy thought of telepathy, and so this was a little forward, all things considered. #But this situation is going bad fast. Stay where you are, I'm making my way over to you - I've got to find Crystal and Medusa, too.#

It was a bit creepy and it was testament to how far Tommy had come that he took it in stride at the moment. "Bad?" He looked around himself and saw the tell-tale signs of the beginnings of a riot. Shit. "I'm fine right now, out of the way if you have to find them first."

--

Crystal turned to look at the mutant-hating group. Apparently, very few people in the crowd had any ounce of creativity within them. She eyed the crowd, stepping closer to Medusa. Crystal knew she and Medusa were each capable of defending themselves, but it was safer to stay together. Jackson, too, moved closer to his royal charges.

Medusa was relieved when Crystal shifted closer to her and she placed her hand gently on her sister's shoulder. "~I have doubts that this can end well,~" she said as the first of the mutant haters reached the human haters and the two sides began arguing with one another.

It was then that Crystal heard hoofbeats and noticed the mounted armed officers who had arrived on the scene. With their masks, protective outfits, and quite visible batons, Crystal had to wonder if such a sight was really intended to alleviate the problem and not incite it to a further degree.

"SCARLET!" Nathan's unmistakable battlefield bellow was audible even over the noise of the crowd, but he'd very deliberately chosen Medusa's Smichov pseudonym. "INSIDE!" he yelled, waving at her and Crystal both from here he was making his way over to Tommy.

Crystal glanced at Medusa. Run away like damsels in distress? The safest bet, yes, but surely they could do something to help instead? Their bodyguard, however, clearly agreed with Nathan's assessment of the situation and he'd have to answer to Lady Ambur Amaquelin if something happened to one of her daughters while on his watch. Frowning slightly, Crystal began heading inside.

If Medusa had been at the rally by herself, her response may have been different. As things stood, the bodyguard didn't give her much choice in the matter and the two Amaquelins were quickly shifted out of the way of the impending riot.

--

The riot squad on their horses were met by jeers and catcalling from at least two sides of the collapsing triangle. But on Angelo's side of things, mockery was quickly flashing into outright fury. Someone over to his left was screaming about "the militant arm of the human oppressors!" and while it was a little wordy in a setting like this, the sentiment was clearly spreading.

Ash, however, was laughing, almost exuberantly. "Here we go!" she shouted almost cheerfully, her eyes glowing with pure unholy joy as they met Angelo's, the noise of the crowd rising around them. "Aren't you glad we came?"

Down the line, Rowan stepped forward. "YOU THINK WE'RE AFRAID OF YOUR LITTLE STICKS?" she screamed - and waved a hand. A police car lifted itself off the ground, directed not at the police, but at the third group of demonstrators, those there in support of Barath. People started to scatter, screaming.

And then the car froze in mid-air.

--

A pause, a familiar voice yelling an unfamiliar name, and then: "I've warned them," Nathan said from right behind Tommy, startlingly. "I should have figured this was going to go in this direction," he muttered.

To his credit, Tommy didn't even jump. He just turned around to look at him. "What's going on?"

"I think it's the 'die flatscans, die' camp - it's hard to track." He'd overstrained his telepathy already this week, and near-riot conditions didn't make for a lot of precision. "I don't know what - " Then there was a car coming at them, flying through the air, and some of the protestors on this side started to scatter, screaming.

Nathan just stared at the car, hard. It froze in mid-air, and the panic among the crowd started to fade, at least somewhat, into shock. "Oh-ho," he said in a steely voice. "There is some young punk-ass telekinetic over there."

Tommy looked out over the crowd - and spotted someone familiar. "I know her. Usually Rebecca throws soda cans and lawn chairs. She's obviously gotten some training and a bigger vendetta. She used to never target the middle grounders."

He nodded to the clear space, caused by the car shifting slightly back and forth in the air as the two mutants pushed it back and forth between them. "Can you put it down? I can transform it to something she can't lift." He pulled off his glove as he spoke, eyes glued on the car.

--

Angelo lowered the hand with the cigarette, staring at it. "Now who did that?" he muttered, scanning the faces in the third group.

Ash looked at him, then peered at the third group herself. They could hear Rowan swearing, the car jerking slightly in the air as she tried to wrench it free. But only slightly. Whoever had a grip on it, that grip was a very firm one.

"RACE TRAITOR!" she screamed at the third group of demonstrators. "COME OUT AND FACE ME, YOU COWARD!"

"It's got to be one of them," Angelo said absently, only half to Ash.

"Flatscans couldn't, people with us wouldn't..." He had a suspicion he knew who it was, but nothing of that showed on his face.

Rowan was turning an alarming shade of red, the strain on her face obvious. When the car moved, however, it was only back to the ground. The crowds shifted, obscuring the vehicle. Which very noticeably did not reappear in the air, although Rowan continued to scream profanities.

--

"Good call," Nathan said, impressed by Tommy's quick thinking, and the car was forced back to the ground as he easily overwhelmed the other telekinetic's efforts. She was moderately strong, this kid, whoever she was. With ten years more experience and a hit of Kick, she might have been a challenge.

Immediately reciting the chemical properties in his head, Tommy reached out to the side view mirror with both hands and closed his eyes. He wasn't familiar with this element plus it was a big object so it took a few very, long moments of him concentrating with his eyes closed before the entire thing turned to sodium and dissolved in a pile on the pavement. It was a testament to how hard he had practiced with his power because before, it probably would have taken him days.

"Let's see you fling the car around now, kid," Nathan muttered warily, part of his attention on their surroundings, trying to identify anything else she might try to fling. Hopefully she wouldn't start on people... he stopped, shaking his head abruptly at the thin, high-pitched whine. "Shit," he muttered, recognizing the feel of it. Sonic attack. "Tommy!" He reached out, took the young man's shoulder, pulling him back. "Go, catch up with Medusa and Crystal. Now."

--

Ash's smile was gone. "Like hell are we letting them have the momentum here," she said under her breath.

And - yes, there was his confirmation, as he caught a glimpse of Crystal farther back, moving towards the UN building. Where Crystal was, other people from the school might be, and a chaperone... and he knew within three names who it most likely was.

"What're you gonna do?" he asked, nothing in his tone to say he disapproved.

"SEABOURN!" Ash yelled, looking down the line to where the other mutant had vanished. "Hit it!"

And that was when things really started to go downhill.

--

Nathan was swearing under his breath, angry enough that he was having to hold onto his temper with both hands as he joined the others taking refuge inside the UN. Outside, there were more police arriving. The situation was teetering on a knife's edge, he could tell, and he just hoped that someone was monitoring newsfeeds back ast the mansion. If the riot squads couldn't get this under control and those young idiots kept using their powers, it might be time for the team to step in.

He'd have stayed out there himself, and might in fact go right back out once he'd done what he needed to do, but he needed to check on the kids and Joel first. He saw Medusa and Crystal together through the crowd, Tommy making his way through to join them. No sign of Joel, but - Rahne appeared all at once from behind a very large man in African-style clothing, and Nathan headed over to meet her.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." Rahne glanced sourly toward the door. "All of you?"

"Fine. Although my ears are ringing - there's someone with a sonic mutation out there who was using it on the crowd." He had reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder unconsciously, as if reassuring himself that she was indeed all right. "Deja vu, huh?" he asked, abruptly remembering the last time they'd taken shelter in the UN lobby from a riot.

Rahne grimaced. Just every once in a while, she found herself envying someone with a potentially subtle, long-range ability. "Aye." She shook her head slightly. "Joel's further inside. And I'm sorry to say, Minister Barath's speech had to be canceled."

"... what?" He didn't quite roar it at her - this was Rahne, after all, and he didn't roar at Rahne - but there was enough surprised anger in his voice to make a number of the people surrounding them look away from the riot happening outside and at him, warily.

And he did not, as might have been expected, immediately regain his composure. The string of profanity that came out in a hiss was Askani, and the unguarded rage on his face almost certainly had everything to do with the sudden, charged heaviness of the air around them. People started to edge away, just a little.

Rahne recognized the language, if not the words, and was less worried about Nathan's temper than about whether his precognition was really altogether gone, because she really didn't care for the idea that this meant some sort of temporal breakpoint. She raised a hand to cover the one still on her shoulder. "That's about how I'd imagine he feels about it too," she said. "He didna get in before it all started, and I suppose we'd rather have him intact than the speech."

Nathan's jaw tightened, his lips pressed tightly together. "Yes," he said, in English and more curtly. "Yes, given the option..." His eyes strayed back to the doors, and he shook his head, once and tightly. "Let's go find Joel."

--

Retreat was definitely in order. Riot police were flowing into the area, successfully regaining the upper hand, and there came a point at which the choice was between retreating or taking even more direct action. The heat of the moment didn't always win out, thankfully.

There would be other days. Ash had pointed that out, as she'd gathered the rest of her friends and made arrangements to meet back at her place if they got separated. They seemed to be making a successful retreat, however; the police were more concerned with protecting the UN building, and as they were heading in the opposite direction, they weren't getting stopped.

"Hah!" Ash crowed at the limousine heading rapidly in the opposite direction from the UN. It had definitely been coming towards the building at first, but had stopped and made an outright U-turn. "What do you want to bet that's the old man from Hungary?

"Could be," Angelo said, shooting the limo a dismissive glance. "Seemed tougher, from the news."

"Well, here's hoping," Seabourn said. He was looking particularly satisfied with himself; he'd been quite free with his powers, and there were a number of demonstrators back there bleeding from the ears. "Now, that would be a good day's work..."

Ash's gaze kept moving over the crowd as they pushed their way through, heading out of the 'riot zone'. Most of the crowd was heading in the same direction, just not quite as quickly as they were. "Good day's work," she echoed under her breath - and then her eyes went wide as she spotted a man in a suit sitting on the ground, bleeding from the head. "Benedict!"

Angelo turned to follow her gaze, and took an instinctive step towards the older man. "Friend of yours?"

"Benedict!" she cried out again, shoving her way violently through the crowd. The others weren't far behind her, if not quite as obviously desperate to get to the man on the ground. "Benedict! Benedict, are you all right?"

The man looked up, blinking at her. He was maybe in his mid-forties, well-dressed and distinguished-looking. "Oh... Ash? I should have realized that you would be here." He winced and touched his forehead. "I believe I may have gotten on the wrong end of a flung bottle..."

"Head cuts always bleed like a bitch," Angelo told her, catching up. "It's probably not as bad as it looks."

"We need to get him out of here." Ash's voice was tight, although her expression was still almost frantic. "Help me get him up?"

"Ash, dear, you fuss too much-" 'Benedict' protested softly, but didn't turn away the help.

Angelo moved to his side to help Ash get him to his feet. Something told him this guy was more than he seemed. Time to make a good impression.