Day Zero, the Movie: Trouble (backdated)

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As tensions boil over, it's left to Lex and Laurie to disperse a potential riot.



 "Watch where you're standing, freak," a man in his early 20s with brown growled, glaring at a man of similar age, but with bright green hair and gills on his neck. The brunette had delibrately jostled the mutant, who was doing his best to ignore both jostle and the jibe. But then a second person jostled him as well, and Green Hair's friends bristled, glaring back at the pair.


"Maybe you should watch where you're walking," a young woman shot back, with gold skin and a melodic, strangely hypnotic voice. "Maybe you need your eyes checked."


The original pair were quickly joined by their friends, and the group of four mutants quickly found themselves squaring off with a group of five humans.


"Maybe you need to get the hell out of our city," a redhead replied. "Isn't it enough that you tried to destroy it?"


"This is not good," Lex whispered to himself, moving forward towards the conflict. There were several people in the way but he could hear the argument getting more heated. It seemed like it was escalating and he started to build up a charge to stun the whole crowd if necessary.

"Are you kidding me?" The golden woman replied. "I was born in New York! And none of us had anything to do with what happened. I was in class when it happened!"


"So what?" The brunette replied. "You're all the same. You're ruining our country!"


"What?" The golden woman screeched. It was literally painful to hear, her voice slicing through the air.


The woman's cries broke the tension, and Lex knew that the situation was about to devolve into violence. "Nightcrawler, we have a problem. Things are just about to boil over, I'm going to have to step in before somebody gets seriously injured and we have to put out even more fires. Please advise, am I free to use powers or should I attempt to be subtle about this one." He didn't want to be subtle, he wanted to stun them all and sort it out once they weren't a threat to the bystanders. However, Lex knew to follow orders and he was prepared to deal with it either way. Sadly, the rioters weren't willing to wait for Kurt to respond.


"Use your powers", Kurt said quickly.  "But be as subtle as is possible, it will help no one if you are seen and things escalate."  He reached over and changed the setting to speak to all active communicators.  "Wallflower, Hamster may need your help with a situation.  Everyone else, trouble is starting to spark outside, please make your way there if you can."
 


"On my way, Hamster," Laurie responded, heading toward the spot at what would be considered a calm but fast walk - no need to panic anyone else in the theater.

"Negative, Nightcrawler," Warren's voice murmured over the comms. "Sparky and I are already in our seats. We can't leave."

Lex couldn't believe what was unfolding in front of him, and he was surprised it hadn't broken out into open violence. The kids around him looked terrified and were starting to shy away from the mutants who looked like they were about to explode.

Their human antagonists were just as thirsty for blood and it could only be moments before someone acted. "It's going down," was all he had time to say before the tension boiled over.


Without thinking he put one knee to the ground and placed his hand flat on the pavement. If he could send a surge of low intensity electricity through the crowd he could stun them long enough for the rest of the team to arrive, without giving himself away. I hope to God nobody has a bad heart.
 


The shock stopped most of them in their tracks - including a few who weren't involved in the growing tension at all. But there were a couple of people unaffected - one of the mutants, with incredibly tough skin, and one of the antagonist wearing heavy work boots that mitigated the shock. It was he that continued the fight, throwing a punch at the mutant left unaffected.
 
And the fight continued.


In some ways it was a Godsend that the fighting had started in the theater, it meant that Laurie didn’t have to worry about whether her abilities would reach everyone in the crowd. All she had to do was pump out pheromones and eventually the air conditioning would deliver a dose of it to everyone within. It might take longer than a simple touch of her hand, but it would reach the people she couldn’t touch.

  
It was for this reason that she allowed her pheromones free reign, pumping out calming, sleepy good will as she made her way into the fray in search of Lex.

“Where exactly are you?” Laurie asked through her comms unit, not being able to see him in the press of bodies now trying to head away from the fighting.


"Busy," was all Lex was able to manage as he dodged a wild fist from a muscular man. His plan, or rather impulsive action, had not worked quite the way he wanted it to. He decided to shock anyone looking to escalate the situation further. The man came at him again and Lex put palm to diaphragm and sent the man flying away.

"That might have been a little excessive," he said into the comms as the man tumbled through the air and into the back of a group of men beating on a prone mutant. They turned and glared at him.

The crowd, affected by the pheromones in the air, was slowly starting to calm. The people trying to leave in a panic slowed to a meander, and those at the edges of the fighting started slowing down, to the point where they eventually just stopped fighting with a lazy shrug and a smile. They too began to meander away, giving Laurie a clear path through to the center of the fighting, where Lex could be found.


 
Laurie didn't hesitate once she could see Lex, moving forward through the crowd, touching those that seemed intent on fighting on any exposed skin she could reach as she moved past them. It took her moments to reach him, and as she reached out to pull him out of the fray, she grinned.

"You know, if this was an action movie, I'd have to throw you over my shoulder or something."

"Updates, please", came from Kurt over the comm.  "What is happening?"


"Well, I'm about to fry every camera in the vicinity so this doesn't become a PR nightmare, but other than that I think Wallflower has this well in-hand." Lex heaved into the comms, he had to concentrate to target the electrics of phones and cameras without hurting anyone. The blast would be tricky but he only needed enough charge to fry some fragile circuits. The blast arced out from his hands, and bounced around with a seemingly without rhyme or reason, however, each blast struck an electronic device and shorted it.

He turned his head as Laurie put her hand on him, "If this were an action movie we'd be bashing in heads and razing hell!"

Laurie had been surreptitiously touching each of the combatants, pushing them apart from each other and generally ducking swung blows till she was able to get people’s emotions under control. She looked back toward Lex and noticed that security was currently making its way toward them.

“Lucky for us, the only action movie is on the screen, looks like security is swooping in,” she replied, pointing further up toward the exit doors. “Should we make ourselves scarce?”

"Probably for the best," he chuckled, hiding the strain he felt. Lex moved towards the exist with as much speed as he could muster, sending a surge of electricity into nearby light bulbs and overload them to disorient their pursuers. "After you?"

Meanwhile, Sam and Tabitha have their own situation to deal with.

The movie had started, which meant most of the catering staff were either taking a break or helping to prepare for the after-movie mingling. Which meant the staff corridors of the cinema should be clear - or so Bruce had assumed, in his planning for this event. He'd snuck in during the initial rush of catering staff, and stayed out of the way for the most part. 

But now it was time. Now they'd be reminded exactly why mutants were so dangerous, and why their exploits should not be commemorated in film. He double-checked the device he had hidden under his coat, the one he'd been promised would make it seem like he had powers of his own, as long as he kept it hidden. The mechanism seemed to be sticking, and he frowned, stopping to fiddling with it. Now was not the time for a malfunction. 

Looking around for anything or anyone suspicious as they crept along through the back corridors of the cinema, Sam stopped, raising his hand to signal for Tabby to stop behind him. A man was stopped not too far ahead of them, and he seemed to be rearranging or manipulating something underneath his coat while scowling. That looked as suspicious as all get out to him. 

He pointed the man out to Tabby, then moved to one side, waiting for Tabby to circle around the other side of the man, just in case they'd have to do something to take him out in a hurry. 

She followed his direction, slipping to the man's far side smoothly. She stared over his shoulder, observing his fumbling. She waited until his hands moved away from the device in frustration before she spoke. 

"Whatcha doin'?" she asked loudly, prepared to snatch his hands. 

Bruce's head snapped up, not having noticed the presence of the mutants until now. He backed away from the blonde, one arm extended. Hidden inside the palm of his hand was the trigger mechanism - he knew it wasn't quite working yet, but they didn't need to. 

"Stay back!" He warned, a thread of panic in his voice. "I mean it, stay back. Or this place will blow!" 

Sam put his hands up in the air, trying to appear as calm as possible. "Hey now, buddy, it's ok, take it easy. No one's going to hurt you." The man sounded very agitated which was not a good thing, especially if he was carrying what his threat implied that he was carrying. 

Looking over at Tabby for a quick second before moving his gaze back to the man, Sam started to edge closer to him from one side while she was on the other. "Just stay calm now, ok?" They'd have to move fast when they moved, and he wanted to make sure that Tabby was ready. 

Tabs looked casual, unworried. Thumbs hooked into her pockets, ready to move at a moment's notice. "You just seem a little tense, dude. You okay? Need a hand?" 

She wouldn't mention that she specialized in explosives, that just seemed antagonistic. And maybe a little tacky. 

"I swear it! I'll do it!" Realizing that his bluff wasn't going to work with them, he frantically squeezed the mechanism in his hand. 

Nothing. 

Squeeze. 

Nothing. 

Shit. 

It was clear the man was making his move, though Sam wasn't exactly sure what he was trying to do, but it was very likely something Not Good. He had to move fast, so he rushed to tackle the man, tempted to use his powers but they were inside and he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't take out a wall or three, not to mention other people. Hopefully a good ol' fashioned tackle would do. 

Tabitha kicked out a foot, aimed for the guy's hand. If she hit just right, she'd knock whatever he was desperately squeezing free, and not blow every body up.

Bruce wasn't expecting to be rushed - and nor was he prepared to respond to the tackle. He went crashing to the ground when tackled, and howled in pain and released his grip when his hand was kicked. In the palm of his hand was a small device connected to a wire that ran up under the sleeve of his jacket. It was connected to a device that he had strapped on, one that had gone crunch as Bruce fell to the ground. 

He struggled for a brief moment, in the vain hope that he'd be able to get away from the blonde man. But then he slumped, realising that it was no use.

Not letting up in case he tried to struggle again, Sam stayed on top of the suspect while calling in to comms to report what had just transpired. "Comms, this is Cannonball, we have taken the target down and we're all clear."

"Turn him over to the police, Cannonball", Kurt instructed him.  "You can tell me the details later."