Community Service: Taking Things Too Far (Inez, Cessily, Laurie)

[x-desperado.livejournal.com]

Inez, Cessily, and Laurie go out to one of the local diners, and run into some less-than-enlightened townie boys. Inez overreacts and takes things a little too far.



Inez dipped her french fry into her chocolate shake and chewed thoughtfully while she looked around the 50s-themed decor of the Jefferson Diner. "Whoever said retro was cool? Lied, yo. I think this place was probably around when Marko was a kid here, you know? Back around the Civil War or something," she joked.

Cessily grinned and basked in the ambiance of the place. "I like it," she declared as she chased one fry with another around her plate. "It's kind of like a short little time warp, I've always been a fan." She shot a grin around the room from under her baseball cap.

"Not quite that old." Laurie noted, having lived in Salem Center for most of her life. "But it's been around for awhile. They do a great all-day breakfast though."

"Oh right, you're a townie," Inez said nonchalantly as she sipped her milkshake. "You know a lot of people here?"

"No, seriously, she let Dave Richmond's older brother finger her behind the maintanance shed last year, before going to the Mutie House."

"Seriously?"

"Heard it from two different people. You know they're built differently, right? Like, down there?"

"Fuck off."

"No, seriously. Go on the internet. They've got, like, extra, you know? She almost broke Paul Richmond's finger while they were doing it."

"I'd risk it."

"No shit, Brent. You'd fuck Darryl's mom if you could."

"She's an attractive older woman."

"That's fuckin' sick, guys." The three teenagers in the booth behind them were talking loudly enough that eavesdropping could only be avoided by wearing earplugs and a pair of earmuffs. Between the normal young male discourse (about sex), the level of volume (quite high), and the general sense of class (Jackass was still very popular in reruns), the girls from Xavier's were being subjected to an altogether ugly window into the townie teenaged experience.

Inez looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes before turning back to Laurie and Cessily. "I swear to God if those assholes don't shut up, I'm giving them something to bitch about."

Cess was slightly amused. "They're teenaged guys, Inez. If they weren't crass, ignorant loud-mouhts, I'd worry about their development."

"Hey Greg. You ask Paul if she's single still? I don't care if she's got teeth down there."

"Take a look, man. She's with the metal bitch now. Like, heavy metal dyke action." There was a loud explosion of laughter, contrasting the fake 'whisper' they were using to talk to each other and shoot looks over to the other booth.

"You ever see that movie were the kid sticks his tongue on the metal pole in the winter? So if they start going at it outside in a couple of months--" The second burst of laughter was louder, earning a sharp look from Mr. Patel, the owner of the diner. The locals knew there was only so far to push him on being rowdy before you found yourself ejected to the seats outside, and it had been raining earlier.

"See, Patel's going to make you go sit in the wet spot, Brent!" His friend crowed. Brent turned back at him with a sly look.

"What, you mean in the booth with the muties?" That set them all off again.

"I would ignore them, if I were you." Laurie replied, just loud enough to be heard over their cackling. "Children who speak about things they don't understand always end up making fools of themselves when it shows just how ignorant they really are."

Inez realized that her hands were cold, then looked down to see that she'd crumpled the metal milkshake tumbler like it was made of aluminum foil. Gritting her teeth, she stood up and walked around to the other table. Calmly, she leaned forward and rested her knuckles on the edge of the boys' table and gave them a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Fellas," she said softly, "y'all think you could try just a little harder to be complete assholes?"

"Sure. I was telling the guys just a second ago-" Brent looked up from his appreciatively long look at Inez' chest and smiled at her. "that I'm sure you'd like it hard from us."

The crunch from the edge of the table as Inez's fingers dug into it was loud and echoed through the diner. "Y'all want to know how hard I like it?" she said as she flexed and ripped the table out of the floor, sending plates and glasses sliding to the floor before she slammed it back down in a cloud of broken tile and dust. "Or maybe you want to see a little bit closer, huh?" she snarled as she reached out for one of the townies.

And then Laurie was there, her hand clamping firmly down on Inez's shoulder. "Inez, I think these gentleman have gotten the point, don't you? Maybe we should give them a little space to contemplate it?"

Inez shrugged her shoulder and pushed Laurie away. "They want space?" She struck the table with her fist, cracking it completely in half. "Sounds to me like they wanted to get real up close and personal."

The three teens had backed away in the booth so they were all up against the window, wide-eyed at the sudden violence and the display of super-strength. However, the first screams had started with two girls at the counter, and now the diner at descended into a chorus of screams and yells as people crowded for the exit. Patel was yelling, trying to make himself heard over the sound of the mob, but they were too focused on flight to care. Smashing dishes and glass added to the cacophony of noise.

Patel grabbed for the phone, dialing 911. He breathlessly explained that mutants were trying to destroy his restaurant. Fortunately for him, Patel had a lot of the local lunch trade from the cops, and a patrol car pulled up in response to the screaming and fleeing patrons.

"The hell is going on?" Dan Loomis pulled his cap off the dashboard and shoved it on his head.

"Dunno. Want me to call it in?" Alice Lee had only been on the force a few months, and Dan was showing her the ropes.

"Yeah, and then follow me in." Dan said, putting his hand on the grip of his pistol and pushing past people to the door.

Inside, all three teens were trying to spill over the sides of the booth and get away.

"Fuckin' mutie's gone nuts!"

Cess jumped over the seat of the booth to put herself in front of Inez. "Cops just showed up, you need to get it together and we need to get scarce." She hoped Inez didn't try to go THROUGH her, she had the most tenuous hold on her solidity and there was nothing quite as icky as being stepped in.

"That's not going to work." Laurie replied, looking at the door to the Diner and the cop that had just entered.

"Everybody just stay calm." Dan said, in his best cop voice. "Mister Patel?"

"She ripped that table out of the ground! It's bolted and she just--" Sanjay Patel was horrified. He'd been working in the diner for almost twenty years, fourteen of them for Anna Jefferson, until she retired and he bought it from her. He was used to rowdy teenagers, but the effortless way that Inez had ripped the table right out of the bolts securing it to the floor, and had waved it like it was no heavier than a napkin terrified him.

There was a crash as Greg made it out of the back of the booth and slipped, his foot smashing through the window with a sharp crack. Alice made it into the diner at that moment, looking worried.

"It's chaos out there."

"It is that girl!" Patel said, and pointed right at Inez.

"Alright, young lady. I want you to point your palms down on the table top. Girls, you back away now." He was now Officer Loomis, and he'd heard enough.

"Oh hell no," Inez growled, pushing the table with her foot hard enough to send it right through the window and out onto the sidewalk. "They started it!"


Both police now had their sidearms out. "Lie down on the ground and put your hands behind your head! NOW!" Even Patel had back up at Inez' burst, looking grey as he watched more damage done to his diner.

Alice Lee gestured with one hand. "You girls, over there. Move!"

"Inez, calm down and do what the nice police officers with the loaded guns want you to do." Laurie said, trying to keep her voice calm and level even though she was having kittens at this particular moment in time. "Cessily and I will go find Garrison and he can help you sort this out."

Inez muttered under her breath as she slowly laid down on the floor like the officer was ordering her too. "This is a mistake..." she kept saying as she laced her fingers behind her head.

"You're going to use handcuffs." Alice said out of the corner of her mouth.

"You got a better idea. Get Patel and these girls statement." Loomis leaned down and took both arms behind Inez' back, snapping the inadequate handcuffs around her wrists. "You have the right to remain silent..."

Officer Lee tuned out as she ushered the girls over to the counter. Sanjay Patel's hands were shaking as she tried to get his statement.

"She tore the table right out of the floor." He said, half in a daze.

"I know, Mister Patel. We'll take care of it." She didn't bother to tell him the rest. Everyone knew who in the Salem Centre police department would make sure he was in charge of the case. And once that happened, that girl would be lucky if she didn't spend the next twenty years behind bars. Lee shook off the disquieting thought, and focused on doing her job; protect and serve.



After the dust clears, Laurie and Cessily call the school and Garrison comes down to try and sort things out.





Laurie paced back and forth, waiting for Garrison to arrive as she watched the crowd that still hadn't quite disappated after all the excitement. She didn't like the looks she was getting from some of the locals, some people she'd known from school, others who were strangers.
"This is going to get nasty." she noted to Cessily. "It's not the entire force, I'm sure, but the Police around here aren't known for their compassion and understanding when it comes to mutants."

Cess stood with her arms wrapped around her middle, staring at a fixed point on the ground. If she could just keep still, she could keep it together. "That seems par for the course today," she muttered angrily. "Idiots." She wasn't entirely sure who, everyone maybe.

Garrison stepped out of the cab on the other side of the street. He'd gotten a garbled cell phone call routed to him from the mansion, which sounded like Inez had gotten herself 'AMLLEASTED BOW THU PHO-LASS'. It was an incredibly depressing realization that he understood exactly what they meant.

He caught sight of the two girls across the street, and jogged over, ignoring the squad cars. He didn't see Inez, so she must have already gotten taken away. Next job he took for the government would have no kids, he promised himself.

"Alright, what the hell happened? Was Inez actually arrested?"

"Read her rights and everything." Laurie noted, a worried look crossing her features before being banished with an effort. "There were these guys bad mouthing me and just generally being complete arseholes. She lost her temper with them, managed to destroy a table and scare the absolute hell out of them. Them and everyone else in the place, unfortunately. Police have already taken our statements but I don't know how fair they're going to be to her, Garrison. The cops in this town aren't known for their equal rights view on mutants. "

"She trashed the diner?" Garrison looked over to the shattered windows and the general disaster inside. "Shit. Stupid little idiot. If she did what you said, the police have every right to charge her, and with her powers, they'll go hard. How the hell did you let her go over and start getting ready to throw down with a bunch of teens, Laurie? Have none of you been listening when we talk over and over and over about the need to control your controls, especially around the general public?"

"I know that, Garrison. I was controlling myself, otherwise you'd have a room full of very sleepy people right now, and I'd be in jail too." Laurie noted, her expression slightly strained. "It's not like I could've gotten her to stop without whammying her and everyone else, you know."

Cessily's gaze didn't leave her toes. She might have been able to stop Inez... "But the things they said..." she whispered in a small voice. She hadn't thought anything could be worse than her parents' coldness.

"When you can punch through a tank, what they said doesn't matter." Kane said in an exasperated tone. "Alright, I'm going to figure out what's going on policewise. You two, get back to the school and tell the Professor what's going on. No one else. The last thing we need is the rest of the school freaking out because she's been arrested. We'll take care of this."

How do you plan on doing that, Garrison thought to himself. The diner looked like the site of a brawl, he'd heard the local cops had some seriously anti-mutant officers in senior positions, and worst of all, it seemed like they had a clear case against Inez. Well, it looked like Boston was going to have to wait after all.