xp_logs | Malibu: A Day at the Breach

The group decides to take a day to relax on the beach in the wake of the court room verdict...

It was another beautiful day in paradise and, as his stomach decided to remind him, nearly time for lunch. Julian got up from the towel he'd laid out while trying to get a better tan and looked around, trying to figure out who he could ask to come with him to get things started. Despite the sunlight he saw the usual suspects all otherwise occupied, with the possible exceptions of Fred and Yvette, by their own thoughts and activities. A dark cloud was hanging over the beach, gloom personified in the form of a ghost. Memory tripped every time he looked at the Greens, whom had decided that a day at the beach would do them some good, of the court room from the day before- he made a silent promise to himself that he'd help them out somehow.

Doreen and Monkey Joe were resting on a beach blanket, a copy of Watchmen over her face to block out the sun. Maybe she could take in Super Heroes by osmosis today, she mused. She wasn't asleep, but she wasn't interacting with anyone at the moment. Monkey Joe was on her stomach and she was in her swimsuit, but the ocean was the farthest thing from her mind.

She didn't think even Batman could fix her problems right now.

Yvette wasn't exactly her normal happy self, consumed by thoughts of Cam and what had happened, but she wasn't so self-absorbed as to ignore a friend in trouble. And Dori was certainly having some kind of issue. Hesitantly, in case she startled the other girl, she took a seat in the sand next to her, letting out a small, polite "ahem". "Dori? Are you being okay?"

Doreen pulled down the comic enough so she could look up at Yvette, "I dunno," she said, her words muffled by the heavy book. At least the day was nice. And the sun was warm. And the smell of the salt water almost took care of the smell of smog. But it didn't really improve her mood.

"Lawyers are evil."

"They are paid to be winning," Yvette replied, pulling her knees up so she could rest hehr chin on them, the cloth of her bodysuit shredding and repairing itself under the rasp of her skin. "But these cases, they are not always being such a way. Later, your mother can be trying again, with the better case, yes? She knows she can be relying on you, now."

"Yeah, I know," Doreen said, "but... it's still not right. I don't get what happened to my Dad," she said, putting the book aside. It was heavy and she wasn't really reading it. "And I hope my brother doesn't start thinking like him..." she felt bad as soon as she said it. She still loved her Dad.

"Your brother is upset too and sometimes people are being angry when they are upset. Perhaps if you are writing to him sometimes, talking to him like the sister he knows, it might be helping?" Yvette suggested, at a bit of a loss. Upset Dori wasn't something she was used to; even in the hospital, the girl had been stubbornly optimistic. "People are changing, Dori. Your father might not be the nice person right now, but with time, perhaps he will be learning to be a mutant is not such the bad thing."

"I really hope so," she said, sitting up a bit, sending Monkey Joe sliding off to the side. He woke up and clicked angrily for a moment before settling back down on the towel. "Because I don't want him not to like me. I mean, I've always liked him. Even when I first got my tail and he liked to pull it," she said, with a little bit of a laugh. She supposed if she was twelve and had an older sibling with a tail she would've pulled it a lot too. "Dad doesn't return emails anymore, but I'll keep emailing him anyway. And my brother too."

"It is hard, yes," Yvette agreed. "Perhaps some time, your brother could be visiting you at the school? It might be helping, seeing that we are not so scary as people are thinking."

"Am I interrupting?" Angel asked from behind them. From the smell around her, she had obviously been to a hot dog vendor and had come back loaded to the gills. "Figured I'd share the bounty - I think I made a friend. Man, that guy totally acted like no one had ever bought $30 worth of hot dogs from him before."

She eyed the lounging squirrel. "As long as he doesn't try to go down the shirt, Monkey Joe can share, too."

Yvette looked up, smiling at her friend before glancing over to Dori. "I would like the hot dog, yes. There is the vegetarian ones, yes?"

"Yep! Veggie, slightly squishy ones and all the stuff you could ever want on them." With some care, Angel sat down on the blanket and nudged over her rather large and bulging bag. "I was hungry, had some cash and figured everyone could probably use a bite to eat or something. A bite or five."

"Monkey Joe promises he won't go down your shirt," Doreen said solemnly, "I would like one please," she said. Now that she thought about it, she was really hungry. Of course, she was always hungry, but there was always room for hot dogs, "Thank you," she said, sitting up the rest of the way, cross-legged, her tail now (somewhat) happily up in the air. Monkey Joe climbed over her legs and looked at the bag and then up at Angel and clicked a few times.

"He wants to know if you got him anything," Doreen translated.

Solemnly, Angel pulled out a veggie hot dog and put it in front of the squirrel. She'd unwrapped it but had left the bread on, not quite sure if Monkey Joe would like the hot dog or the bread more. She was both fascinated by him and terrified, too - the name and the look just conjured up far too many bad memories of screaming and running around flailing like a mad thing.

Monkey Joe went and started with the bun first, but was eating the hotdog too, Dori tearing off a piece for herself. Monkey Joe had pieces of hotdog in both 'hands' and was stuffing his mouth like he was at the Coney Island hotdog contest. Doreen giggled. It was always so funny to watch.

Over at his own corner of the beach, Nick Gleason looked up from his book to see Joe and his crazy eating. He chuckled slightly before going back to his book, happy that he had gone to the beach, and also happy that he wouldn't have to go head to head with Monkey Joe in his eating competition with Kobyoshi. The boy picked up his play, and quickly went back to his place.

"Hey, Dori!" Vic called from behind a mound of sand that was on the verge of becoming recognizable. "You're still going to help us out with this, right?"

Doreen looked over and her cheeks colored a bit, "Y-Yeah!" she said, setting her hotdog down and bounding over towards where Vic and Johnny were. Monkey Joe looked up at her and just pounced on the hotdog she left behind. He wasn't going to let perfectly good food go to waste.

"Is it the lizard today?!" Doreen asked excitedly.

"Dragon," Johnny corrected from beside Victor, dusted with sand and smiling anew to see the girl's mood beginning to recover, at least for the moment. These injuries were likely to last a long while. He looked at their creation and his face became sheepish and he relented lightly, "…Though, it does look more like a lizard, doesn't it?"

Vic squinted at it dubiously. "I don't know. Most lizards are prettier than that," he joked, handing Dori a small trowel and beaming at her. "What do you think?"

"Y..yeah..." Doreen said, still blushing a bit, "But it's okay! It's still really awesome. I'm sure we can make it look even better. I used to do this all the time!" she said and felt her mood just plummet. But she kept smiling anyway. She had a lot of experience at that.

Julian approached Yvette, throwing a towel over his shoulders, "Hey, mind coming back to help me get lunch started?"

"Of course." Yvette got up almost eagerly, brushing sand from her bodysuit. It wasn't so much that she wasn't having fun, but she was nervous about meeting Cam again, after the awkward scenes the day before. "Do not be spoiling your appetite with too many hot dogs!" she admonished Angel, jokingly.

Angel gave Yvette a look before breaking into giggles. "The world would totally end if that were to ever happen! I'm going to go see if Maureen needs anything."

*****

Yvette, Fred & Julian head back to the mansion to make lunch...

The sun was pleasant against Julian's bare chest- which now showed the results of daily weight lifting back in Westchester. The three of them, he, Fred and Yvette, were headed back to the beach house to make lunch for the last time on this trip. The sad fact that their vacation was almost over set a nasty feeling into Julian's stomach, he did not want to go home and certainly didn't want to have to go through another New England winter. Looking to his red skinned friend, he noticed she was looking fairly tense and seemed to be scanning the beach for something. "You okay, Apple Ninja?"

Yvette jumped slightly and then recovered. "No, no, everything is being fine," she said hurriedly, not wanting to drag the boys into her silly mess. "I was just looking for someone, that is all. It is no matter."

Fred looked concernedly over at his tiny red friend as he lit a cigarette, slowing his trudge up the beach, "Lookin' for someone?.... Vette, you sure you okay? I hadn't seen you flustered like this in a good long while..."

"Just a boy," Yvette waved it off with a forced laugh. "The boy troubles, yes? It is nothing."

"Need us to go find this guy and teach him not to pick on our friends?" Julian said, pounding his fist into an open palm as he winked at Yvette.

No!" Julian might have been joking, but Yvette reacted seriously. "It was just being the misunderstanding, yes? I have been dealing with it. Please, do not be hurting him!"

"Relax, Yvette," he said with a smile, stopping just short of putting his arm around her. "We wouldn't hurt him- as long as he doesn't hurt you I mean." The beach house was directly in front of them now as the trio turned toward the stairs that led up to the deck.

Fred was about to open his mouth when his phone began blasting the opening to 'Wagon Wheel'. He fished it from his pocket and smiled as the name 'Callie' blinked across the screen in large blue letters. He trotted away from his friends, calling back, "Hey, you guys go ahead. I have to take this..." and was already a ways down the beach, hypnotized by the voice on the other line.

Julian smiled and turned toward Yvette, "You okay though?"

"I will be. It has been, how you say? The learning experience." Yvette's answering smile was wry, and a little sad. "It has been making me think about--"

The wretching sound of metal on metal cut her words short, drowning out even the crash of the surf on the sand a short distance away. The trio- now a duo due to Fred's unfortunately timed phone call- looked toward the beach house just in time to see something large and black fly over the building. It spun around several times, cutting the air with a 'whoosh' as it came closer, before finally crashing into the sand a few feet away.
Julian took a step toward it, "Is that...?"

"It is trouble," Yvette supplied, her hair standing out in long, stiff spikes. "Someone is attacking the house."

*****

The beach house is breached and the would be cooks find themselves under attack...

True to her word, as some of the others went to go do lunch things, Angel was chatting politely with Doreen's mom when the grating noise of metal against metal overrode everything else. The redhead was on her feet halfway through the awful noise, one hand against her ear as she glanced around and tried to find the source of the noise, half resigned to the fact that someone had probably broken something...

And that was when she saw the twisted frame of the mansion's front gate sail lazily over the house in the distance. Her jaw dropped for a moment before she turned to Maureen. "Stay here on the beach, make sure they don't go anywhere and I'll be right back!" she yelped, before turning and sprinting for the front of the house, leaping into flight once she was a safe distance away from the group.

*****

Rounding the corner of the house, Julian was confronted by a ghost- or rather a ghost and half-a-dozen armed thugs who were dispersing through the courtyard toward the house. A hedge was still concealing them as the tall, muscle bound latino barked orders at the other masked men. Despite not being able to see his face, he knew that voice anywhere, "Simon..." he whispered before crashing through the bushes and charging at his old friend.

"Simon, what the hell man?"

Smiling maniacally, Simon followed suit, rushing towards Julian. His mind was a chaotic mix of ecstatic rage, and the knowledge that he was there to brutalize the one who betrayed him. "So good to see you, Julian!" he roared, his heart racing and his muscles clenching. He knew he was a semi going head to head with a moped.

It was going to be a slaughter.

His smile grew even wider as he launched a meaty fist towards the other man's chest. It would be good for him to crush the life out of the one who'd forced him into serving McPhearson.

Not knowing how to take the arrival of his old friend- the only one he hadn't turned on when the chips were down- Julian forgot all about the men with guns now pointed toward him. Suddenly, the warm feeling of seeing an old friend was gone, replaced by dread as the second strongest man he'd ever known swung a fist at him. With the quick practiced reaction of someone who'd taken a punch before, Julian tossed up a telekinetic shield, blazing bright green- if not a little thin- over the area where he was about to get hit.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. With an "Oofph!" Keller flew back toward the house and through a window. Broken glass made several small cuts on his bare back as he fell against a rather conveniently placed sofa- the wind knocked out of him. As he gasped for breath he had but one thought, 'He's gotten stronger.'

"Julian!" Yvette had followed him out onto the deck slightly more cautiously, given that someone was flinging heavy gates about. That was put aside as she saw Julian flying through the window, however. Powers reacting and making her skin razor-sharp and impentrable, she turned her attention to the thug. "You had better be leaving. Now." It might have been comical, the tiny girl facing down the much-taller Simon, if she hadn't already done it before in Sri Lanka. "People will be getting hurt and we do not want the trouble."

A figure wreathed in blue flames came streaking from around the other side of the house as Angel joined the group outside. She only hoped that the younger folks would stay with Maureen, especially once she got a good look at the people standing in front of Yvette. She noticed the broken glass in the window but didn't really pay attention to it as she landed hard next to her roommate.
She took one look at Simon and decided that the flame shield was staying on for the moment. "What the hell - do you guys even know how much that gate costs?" she asked.

Simon hardly noticed the other mutants as he watched the hole in the wall. Even if he had, he was too focused on annihilating Julian to care. As he walked forward, the boost making him drunk with power, he motioned to the men at his back. "Keep them busy," he growled, "Julian is mine." As they spread out into disorganized fire lines he sprinted forward, heading straight for his target.

Trying to pull himself up, Julian heard the tinkling of glass falling off his body. He could feel where they'd lacerated his skin, his back aching as it flexed under the simplest of movements. "Fuck," he swore, trying to regain his breath as he took stock of what the hell was happening. Simon showed up, then...that's where stuff stopped making sense. The sound of gunfire snapped him back to reality as he watched the front door get smashed in. Suddenly he was back to a year ago, only now Simon was trying to kill him it seemed. "We don't have to do this, Simon!"

The sound of gunfire had come from outside and even though Angel figured that Yvette probably wouldn't be hurt by a bullet, she didn't take any chances. From her hands, blue flame boiled out and created a temporary fire wall between the girls and the attackers, the bullets melting from the intense heat.

"Oh man, this isn't good!" she yelled to Yvette.

"We need to be making sure no-one is being hurt!" Yvette called back. "And this ~moron~," she said the word in Albanian, "is not listening to the reason. We have to be stopping him." She glanced at the gun toting gang. I am hating to say it, but Julian must be looking after himself for now, yes? The guns - we have to be stopping them before someone is hit."

Had Fred not been on the phone with Callie, he would've noticed the fight sooner. Had he not been walking along the beach, listening to the sound of his girlfriend (kinda)'s voice, he would've spotted the brawl or heard it sooner.

All that? Doesn't matter now though. Cause people were pointing guns at Yvette and Angel, and Fred wasn't sure if they'd be dead by the time he was done or not. He didn't real care, if was being totally honest.

Coming up from behind the fight with the gunners and the girls, Fred screamed loud enough to get their attention off his friends, and ran headlong into one of the attackers hard enough to knock a wall over.

He didn't say anything to them, though. These bastards didn't get a surrender option.

"Don't do anything really bad to them!" Angel yelled over the din. X-Men, and trainees (and New Mutants), didn't kill. And she was pretty positive maiming and smushing went right along with that.

At her words, a few of the guys chuckled and head her way and Angel floated backwards as she tried to think. Fire tended to do bad things to people and she was still leery of using it in a fight. And the problem was that these guys weren't afraid - yeah, she was sort of on fire but she was young and obviously not street tough. So - she had to make them be afraid of her.

It almost hurt, that reaching past her current state to grab more power. To bring it to her and snap it open. She'd only done this a handful of times before and only once or twice on purpose. It meant that she was just as surprised when she erupted into more flames than the attackers were. It looked as if it had consumed her, flowing and tightening around her skin as a wave of intense heat rolled off of her.

Now they looked scared.

While Angel took the high road and Fred took the path of least resistence straight down the middle, Yvette tucked herself down low, dropping into her trademark crouch as she slipped gloves and socks off. She was reasonably sure she could take a bullet - after all, the land mine hadn't actually penetrated her skin, but she had to be careful about internal bruising. No breaking the new kidney, since there weren't any more available. Slipping into the bushes of the garden, she used the distraction provided by both of her friends to creep around to the man - no, a boy, really, he wasn't much older than she was - carrying a shotgun, appearing by his side so suddenly and quietly, it was as if she had appeared by magic. With careful aim, she swiped at the weapon - her skin wasn't sharp enough to cut straight through it like Mr. Logan's claws could, but she mangled it enough that firing it would be a very risky endeavour indeed.

"We don't want to be hurting you," she repeated to the shocked young man. "Please, to be leaving now."

Although he'd been brought up in one of the toughest areas of the south side, despite the fact he'd worked for mutants for the last year, Ricardo was nearly pissing himself as he dropped his gun and headed for the remains of the gate at a sprint. No amount of money was worth this sort of trouble, he only hoped his friends would see that too.

Inside the house, things weren't going as well for Julian- though he was certainly getting some good, practical training in on how to use his shields properly. Simon hit him again, smashing him into a section of the entertainment center, which his powers thankfully absorbed. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" he screamed, quickly getting to his feet and throwing up another barrier a short ways away. "It's me, Simon! It's Julian, your friend!"

Simon couldn't hear his friend. The rage that had been building since he found out Julian was the one to betray them, combined with the boost, had deadened all feelings beyond his want to destroy the man. Looking around he saw his team running off towards the gate, away from a handful of mutants. He knew he wouldn't be walking out in one piece if he didn't do it soon.

"Friend? I think you misunderstand..." He launched a tremendous kick, stronger than the one that sent the gate flying overhead, at Julian's chest. He knew he had to leave, but not without one final effort at destroying the man who'd betrayed him.

This time his shield held, but it didn't take the full blow. Julian screamed as he got rocketed back towards a wall- making a mental note to ask Nathan how to circumvent physics like this. The wall broke cleanly as he was able to throw up a bubble behind himself before he hit- that didn't stop the sting of sheet rock dust from getting into the cuts on his back.

With no small amount of satisfaction at seeing his former friend flying through a wall, Simon turned and took off back towards the gate. He wanted to stay, to kill, but he wasn't dumb. McPhearson had told him to eliminate Julian, but not at the expense of being arrested. Guerrila Warfare, as Simon well knew, was all about hit and runs. This would give his opponent something to wonder about, and give them some time to formulate a new plan of attack.

As he got to the gate, Simon turned one last time to lack at the damage they had caused. It's not nearly enough, he thought, feeling guilty. The others deserved to be avenged. Next time, you won't be so lucky.

Simon turned, pulled his hood up over his head, and ran off.

Out of breath, Julian dug deep and found the strength to press on after his old friend...there was no way he was getting away with this. And if Gordon was involved in any of this, Keller silently swore that he'd make sure the old bastard paid dearly- particularly if any of his friends were hurt. "Get back here, you bastard!" he screamed after the fleeing adversary.

*****

As the attackers flee, Julian gives chase, Angel & Yvette intervene for his own good.

It really hadn't taken very long for someone to call 911 and report a fight - in that kind of neighborhood, a ruckus of that kind was almost unheard of. The wail of the police sirens caused the attackers to freeze and then bolt in different directions, scattering to give themselves a chance to get away.

"Well, okay then," Angel said, landing on the ground and trying to get a good look at everyone involved. She kept repeating scenarios to herself from her training and now she knew it was time to check in on injuries.

Yvette wrestled herself from the bush she'd landed in, leaves sticking to the spikes of her hair. "Should we be going too?" she asked, nervous of impending police action given how the local Salem Center police tended to react to mutant-related incidents.

"Well, maybe not flee but certainly look -" Angel stopped and looked around, counting heads before a movement out of the corner of her eye made her facepalm. "Yvette? Is Julian running helter skelter like a moron after the bad guys?"

"Yes, he is." Yvette might have been rolling her eyes, but it was hard to tell with her powers. "He is going to be doing the stupid thing. We should be stopping him, yes?"

Angel nodded. "I'll get in front of him and you block off blockhead's escape, okay?" she suggested. When Yvette nodded and started heading toward the running figure, Angel went for speed.

It didn't take very much time for her to gracefully pull aside and then ahead of Julian before executing a turn and stop that would have made all of her flight instructors proud. She dropped to the ground and crossed her arms as she watched Julian struggle to not run right into her.

"Whoa!" he shouted as he narrowly avoided bowling into his ex, which sent him careening against a stone fence with a thud. Getting up, he slowly started back in the direction he'd been going. "Come on, they're getting away!"

"They're getting away but we're totally not giving chase," Angel responded firmly. "Please stop trying to enter bad ideas into the Bad Ideas of 2009 contest, okay?"

Yvette scampered up, straightening from her crouch to block Julian's path from the other side. "Please, do not do this, Julian," she said. "It will only make things worse, for you to take the law into your own hands. The police are coming, they can be doing what is needed." She exchanged a quick look with Angel. "Trust us, we are knowing what it is being like."

Slowly, the rage that had built up inside him over the course of the fight ebbed and he saw their point. Then another fact hit him like a ton of bricks. "Shit, the cops," Julian looked down at the end of the street where he could just see the flashing lights of police cruisers heading toward him. "Okay, this may sound dumb, but you need to get the others and head back to the beach, wait a minute, then come back to the house...okay?"

Angel just gave him a look. "This had better be 'so we don't have to answer any weird questions' plan and not 'going off to do stupid things' plan," she warned him. "Or I'm so going to kick your ass."

"Look, they're gone, I get it, but the thing is the police don't really like me around here and if they see us out here, they're going to arrest us all instead of just me." Before they could ask a question, "I'll explain later." Julian began running back toward the house, "Come on!"