xp_logs | Sons of Mutancy

The leader of the Huns does exactly what he’s supposed to do - leads his people and the Cartel men back to the warehouse where the guns have been taken.

Snakeface knelt in the dust in the treeline around the warehouse that the GPS trackers that his employer has insisted were installed in each weapons crate had indicated they were taken. The Huns Prez was bruised and angry, having been screamed at by Costa’s assistant and then threatened by the man beside him, Javier Diaz. Diaz was an imposing man; a former Mexican Special Forces who moved his expertise to the Cartels. Snakeface thought of himself as a hard man not to be fucked with, but even he would think twice about messing with Diaz. The man has cold, dead eyes; shark’s eyes, and when he had to tell him they’d lost the Cartel’s delivery, he’d honestly been worried that he was going to be the first victim.

“They have to be in there. Must be waiting for a pickup. We only saw bikes.”

“It’s the only building within three miles of the GPS signal. What brilliant deduction, Senior… Face.” Javier said contemptuously. He hated the idiot bikers that the Cartels used to mule guns to them and drugs back to their operations in the US. It was nice to be able to sideline them. He spoke into his walkie talkie.

“Sergeant, move your men in. Flank them on the left on my signal.” He pointed to the road. “Get your Huns on the road and block off the front.” He didn’t tell him that his plan was to let the bikers draw all the attention and fire from the people who stole his guns first. “Move.”

The rumble of the bikes filled the clearing as the first men drove in.

In the trees, invisible to the naked eye, Nica took in the approaching bikers and then the cartel members peeling off to flank the warehouse. Faster than a blink, she sped back to her team. "We've got company," she told the others. "Huns coming from the front and the real bad guys coming in from the sides."

"I hear them," Matt murmured, on the warehouse roof where he'd have the best vantage to play human-radar. "They're coming in cautious...but ready for bear," at least judging by what he could tell. Things like guns were hard to guess from a distance, but he had to assume they were all armed and after everything that happened, willing to do just about anything to get their shipment back.

Maya for her part was crouching beside Matt and trying to keep out of the way as much as possible. She didn’t have any advantages that made her input worthwhile here, so she sat back and made sure to pay attention to what the others did.

Wanda nodded at Nica and Callisto. "Okay, ready for bear it is. They are going to hit the warehouse as hard and as fast as they can. But we know they're coming, which gives us an advantage."

Callisto nodded, narrowed her eye. "What're your plays?" she asked. She only knew a fraction of what the two women could do, and what's more she knew they were both playing it subtle for this outing.

"Those on the frontline are going to find themselves on motorcycles in sudden mechanical failure," Wanda responded. "That should slow them and hopefully anyone immediately behind them down. I'll need a decent line of sight but not enough to catch their attention, especially if I cause enough of them to crash into each other."

"Since I can go invisible, I can scout and warn folks?" suggested Nica. "And I have my infra-red. But all we need to do is hold them off until the rest of the team comes to arrest us, right?"

"That's the plan but always expect the unexpected." Wanda would be more than pleased if everything went according to plan but not surprised at all if something came up. She flicked a glance towards the rooftop. "All set up there?"

"Ready," Matt agreed, shifting to lay next to Maya. Both of them had sponge grenade launchers to use after Wanda did her thing before joining the melee downstairs. Tapping Maya for attention, he checked, "Ready?"

“Ready.” Maya responded before turning her attention back to their targets. She was reliant on Matt to give her the go ahead since she couldn’t hear any of the planning but he’d been sending her the abbreviated version of everything via text messages.

It was just a matter of the people coming for them getting close enough to kick it all off.

Taking on the first wave, Wanda and Callisto enjoy themselves far too much.

"All right," Callisto bit her lower lip, then gave a short nod. "I'm with you, then - with Maximoff," she clarified for those on comm. She gave the nod to her teammates, and fell into step behind Wanda as she crept to the treeline.

"I can hang back on your mark," she muttered, "or I can misdirect to buy you some time. Preferences?"

Wanda flexed her hands and surveyed the scene. "Hang back," she said after a moment. "Once I've caused the crash, you can jump into the fray but it'll be easier to manipulate things first."

Callisto gave a sharp nod, and glanced upward. "Think I'll find a handy tree," she said. "Then I can throw myself out of it like a psychotic monkey. They'll love that." Her delivery was so deadpan that the rather goofy humour didn't hit immediately. When it did, Wanda blinked and then snorted sharply, an attempt to keep from laughing and drawing attention.

With that, Callisto parted from her companion, slipping silently from cover to cover, putting some distance between them to help them remain undetected on approach.

With Callisto hidden, Wanda dropped and crept through the underbrush, keeping between her and the road to provide cover but allow her to see the road. It wasn't long before the rumbles of the motorcycles could be heard and then felt, deep in her bones, as the gang appeared down the road. There was no debris in their path, so she would need to focus on the machines themselves.

They took good care of their bikes but everything has a breaking point or a fault. Wanda's eyes followed the strings and found a dull colored red one attached to the front of one of the leaders' bikes. Something was wrong with the tire - a nail, perhaps, or something else he hadn't been able to get looked at. Very small and not noticeable by anyone other than Wanda as she manipulated and coaxed it to fail.

And fail it did, blowing out as the rider gunned the motor. The tire shredded and the metal rim slammed into the ground, causing him to lose all control over the bike.

The crew's approach was not fast, so the unfortunate victim's compatriots were able to react before a fatal pile-up occurred, but these evasive manoeuvres sent them off in every direction, veering away off to either side of the clearing. As they went, entropy kicked in. Bikes in front toppled or suddenly lost power. Bikes behind crashed into those in front even as they tried to avoid collisions - failed steering, bad judgement. Whether by the witch's hand or their own the gang was soon in total chaos.

Wanda smirked and blew a kiss towards the pile-up. "Okay, psychotic tree monkey," she said over the comms, "you're up. I'll follow once I confirm there are no more dominoes I can make fall."

"Aw, I haven't even got up the tree yet. Eh, fuck it."

Somewhere in Wanda's periphery, a figure stepped out from the treeline just as a biker veered toward it, his bike out of control beneath him. Callisto stuck an arm out. He stopped moving. The bike did not. Apparently Callisto's commitment to Looney-Tunes-level slapstick was no joke.

"We need to hang out more often," Wanda responded, distorting reality enough to cause the bike to suddenly veer off into another unlucky biker, causing both bikes and former rider to disappear into a ditch on the side of the road. She stood and watched as those in the back came to a halt, calling for each other to stop and go on foot. They were clearly pissed.

"Is that a proposition?" Callisto said, pelting into the fray and doing a weird little preparatory skip before launching herself at a biker. "Isn't this - hang on a sec- hey you!"

Apparently this was a very specific biker. "Yeah you, you little fuck, I've got something for you." Holding the guy by the neck, Callisto jammed a hand into her pocket and withdrew it with a small object between her fingers. "You shot me earlier, asshole. Have you heard the expression 'eat lead'? Open up, c'mon, choo choo..." She had him in a one-armed chokehold now - he was taller than her but still unable to keep his feet under him, hands grabbing wildly at Callisto's skinny forearm, trying to pry his teeth apart with her other hand. "Open up..."

The man suddenly went completely limp in Callisto's arm and the sudden dead weight caused the biker to slip out of her grip, as tight as it was. "Behave," Wanda chided, the glint of red shining off to the side in the forest. "We're trying for no deliberate kills this time, remember? Nonlethal maiming only, if you don't mind."

"The human body can pass a lead bullet," Callisto protested, with a certainty that suggested this was not an unverified assertion. She gave the now-prone biker a parting kick, and turned to find the next nearest target, who was about six and a half feet tall and built like a haunted fuckin' wardrobe. "Hey, have we met?"

Wanda dropped back into the trees as Callisto charged at the hugely built biker, letting the other woman draw the attention for the moment. She slipped past the other bikers until she was slightly behind them. They were beyond angry, which meant some of them weren't being very careful. It really didn't take that much manipulation on her part to cause someone to trip into the person next to them, which led to harsh words and a sudden, out of nowhere punch that sent one of the men sprawling.

And so it went. Like a hyperviolent cartoon, Wanda and Callisto chucked their burly opponents around like they were leather-and-denim-clad scarecrows. As the bikers grew increasingly angry and bedraggled, the women weren't even breaking a sweat.

Nica and Wanda pivot from the bikers to the more professional Cartel soldiers.

The Huns were well on the way to losing the fight, but the cartel soldiers were another matter. They were better trained, and much better armed. Nica, flying overhead and her vision shifting to infrared, could see them gathering for the attack. "Scarlet Witch!" she called into her mic. "You're about to have company!"

Wanda acknowledged the heads up by tossing the Hun she'd been fighting up and over her head. The man landed with a cry that was silenced by a swift kick to his head. He'd wake up with a hell of a headache in the morning. "I was wondering when this would start to get interesting," she said, turning to survey the area. "How many?"

"Plenty," Nica replied, before realising accuracy would be more helpful. "Ah, about eight? And..." She shifted her vision again, back to normal, and added: "And they have a lot of guns. I'll be there in a sec."

Eight and armed. And absolutely better armed than the previous thugs. Wanda wiped sweat and dirt off of her forehead as she took in the surrounding areas. Firefights could potentially complicate her powers - just by their nature, they added far more unknowns and chaos to the battlefield. "The sooner the better," she said, heading over to the nearest car to take cover. "We know they're coming, so hopefully we can set up a nice welcome party for them."

The words were barely out of Wanda's mouth when Nica blinked into sight beside her. "Faster than light travel," she explained with a brief grin, before dropping her sunglasses over her eyes. While she would be able to use a broader range of her powers, they needed to keep things on the down-low - it would ruin the whole plan to have Costa realise there were superheroes involved. And glowing eyes as she switched energy fields would probably be a bit of a give-away. "I can use the infra-red as an energy beam to knock them down," she told Wanda. "And I can probably mess with any laser sighting they have, but I'm still learning the hand-to-hand stuff."

"Understood, then I want you to mess with them from a distance. If any get close enough to need those new skills, bail - these aren't the ones you want to try anything out on. I'll manipulate the situation as much as possible every chance I get and I'll be the muscle in this." Wanda's hands flitted down to make sure her knives were still in their sheathes. They were all still there, none had gotten lost during the previous fights.

"Sounds like a plan," Nica replied with a grin. There was no more time to talk as the first cartel soldiers broke the tree line, with guns aimed at them. "I always wanted to try this," the X-Man muttered to herself as she focussed on pulling in and amplifying as much infrared heat as she could, before releasing it in a wave at the approaching bad guys. It wasn't enough for all of them, but those in the front suddenly found themselves carrying metal that was too hot to handle and there were several curses and yelps as they dropped their weapons.

As the weapons hit the ground, several of them started to fire on their own - well, not entirely on their own, as Wanda manipulated things from behind the scenes. Someone went down howling, clutching their knee, as blood poured out of their fingers. The others were luckier and were able to scatter, running up and around the malfunctioning and overheating weapons.

From out of the woods, laser sights centered on Wanda as a pair of sharpshooters who had sensibly kept under cover targeted the tall woman. Nica darted forward, letting the lights hit her instead - or initially hit her before zooming off in crazy directions which just happened to be in the eyes of one of their companions who were still trying to advance despite the lack of weapons and random bullets. He shrieked and clapped his hands over his eyes, temporarily blinded, while the sharpshooters gave up on technology and breached their cover in an effort to manually aim at their target.

Wanda wasn't making it easy on them. She dove sideways, into some brush, using the cover they had just abandoned to her own advantage. She heard them cursing as she ran through the undergrowth, keeping low and fast. The snipers were a problem and playing hide and seek in the bushes wasn't going to cut it for long.

Nica knocked another soldier over with her infra-red beam and looked around. Everyone was down or retreating, except for the snipers Wanda was dealing with. No doubt the woman from X-Force could handle things, but Nica decided it would be courteous to lend a hand any way. With their outlines blazing brightly in her altered vision, she took cover and hit them with visible light, the equivalent of a high-powered searchlight. "Don't move!" she shouted, trying to sound as authoritative as possible. After all, SWORD would be arriving any minute, a little confusion wouldn't hurt.

"Fuck!" a voice yelled, blinded and startled by the light. Nica's beam pinpointed their location exactly to Wanda and she turned to head straight towards them. One of the snipers had lowered his weapon to cover his eyes with one hand and he didn't see or hear her sneak up around him. Grabbing the gun, she pulled down hard, letting the strap around his neck help bring his head down right as she brought her knee up. He cried out briefly as his nose broke but didn't cry out again as Wanda grabbed him by the back of the head and kneed him again, dropping him unconscious to the ground.

She turned, red energy lighting up her hands, expecting to have to deal with the other one but from the sounds of the crashing in the bushes, that one had decided that running away was the better part of valor.

"All clear," she called, kneeling to unload the sniper rifle, in case her unconscious friend decided to wake back up.

Taking on some of the Cartel, Maya potentially breaks the X-Men’s cardinal rule.

Maya reached over and touched Matt's hand, quickly giving him a run down of the cartel soldiers flanking them and asking him for suggestions on how they should handle this fight with the short amount of pro-tactile sign they'd practiced together to that point. She'd already reached for the part of her mind that held her memories of his fighting style and stance, copying the physical movements even if she didn't have his enhanced senses.

Still, she'd go with whatever he said to do, he was by far the more experienced of the two of them in this situation.

"High-low, mirrors," Matt murmured, keeping his voice low, but his lip movements clear. The plan was simple enough though, especially since she could mimic him. Attack on two levels, take them out moving from inside out. And of course, adapting to the situation. Pro-tactile ASL was...clumsy at best, at least with the level of practice and experience he had, but it worked. Especially because they focused on situations just like this one instead of everyday pleasantries.

“You got it, boss.”

Maya didn’t have the full conditioning yet to fully use Matt’s skills, bare knuckle boxing especially required conditioning the hands but she figured she’d have the time to recover as long as they got through this.

She grinned and gave one of the Cartel soldiers a come hither hand gesture while placing her back to Matt’s

The automatic fire nearly took her head off as they opened up with their modified MP5s. They weren't screwing around and were looking to pile up the bodies as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Moving as soon as he heard a finger move, the trigger not quite pulled before he was in motion, Matt was grateful for what body armor he had on. It wouldn't stop everything, wouldn't stop the pain, but it would hopefully provide enough protection from trigger-happy bikers. Taking out two with his billy club, he was also grateful for the brass knuckles he wore as he rolled to his feet to take out another.. They weren't part of his normal gear, but for biker-Matt, they were perfect. And the fewer people with guns or able to fire them, the better.

Maya for her part would have froze had it not been for her powers.

Instinct took over instead, and she pulled one of the knives North had gifted her with and chucked it in a perfect line toward one of their assailants.

The weapon sunk deeply into the arm of one of them, even as her body moved smoothly into a twist and duck routine that would make it difficult to aim for her directly as she took out another knife and threw that as well.

The blade took the man in the throat and Maya watched him drop with a spray of bright red arterial blood. He toppled over, hands clutching at his throat. His partner backed off of the fight, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him back towards the treeline, screaming for a medic in Spanish.

"La ayuda no viene," Matt growled, stalking behind them, his grin manic as he made certain his guys wouldn't get back up with his fists. His face painted with blood splatter. Letting him go, he turned, waving to Maya, "You finished yours too quickly. They ran away," that wasn't a criticism.

Maya had frozen the moment the knife sliced into the bad guy’s neck, shock dropping her out of the skills and attitude she’d been copying to that point.

The red of the blood on Matt’s face matched the red of the splatter patterns currently coating the floor and dragging away toward the trees.

She blinked at him. She couldn’t, she didn’t know what to do.

It was so red, so red.

"Let's go," Matt stated, moving towards Maya. Her heart rate was like a hummingbird, "We'll talk later, yeah?" he offered, X-Men didn't kill, but now was not the time or place to discuss it.

Brand and her team arrive to make their arrests.

The heavy bodied black SUVs pulled into the drive leading to the warehouse, smashing a couple of downed bikes to one side while the other X-Men fought a mix of The Huns and the Cartel. They screeched to a halt, kicking up a cloud of dust as they poured out of the cars. Each had switched their suits for windbreakers with SWORD clearly emblazoned on the back and chest. Their plan depended on not only forcing the Cartel to retreat, but also to seem to arrest their fellow X-Men playing the role of The Secret Empire MC while seizing the guns, providing the cover they promised Cortez.

“Deploy on hostiles. Remember, we want retreat, not arrests.” Kane said as he was first out. One of the bikers staggered up in the dust cloud and took a punch to the chest that sent him tumbling end over end out and into the tree line.

Sooraya blocked a punch from a second biker, when suddenly someone wrapped an arm around her neck from behind. Resisting the urge to shift immediately, she reached up and grabbed his arm, feeling him trying to pull her backwards. Pulling the arm she dropped her weight down a little and wrapped one leg around her attacker's, sending him to the ground.

Kyle was out of the SUV as fast as he could move, almost throwing himself away from the rest of the X-Men. He spared Dust a quick glance, noted that she probably had her shit together, and threw himself onto the shoulders of a biker easily six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than himself. His claws snagged on the biker's jacket, ripping a tear through it. Kyle flashed the man an unsettlingly toothy grin and then flipped, taking the larger man to the ground.

Another biker flipped open a switchblade and broke into a run toward Kyle. But before he could complete the charge, he appeared to stumble and hit the dust. The knife fell from his grip and bounced on the ground. Gabriel, who'd engineered the fall, suddenly appeared in front of the blade, as if out of nowhere. "You really should be more careful," he said with a smirk, picking up the blade and flipping it around toward the would-be attacker.

A flash of green energy took the biker in the chest, blasting him into the treeline with the other that Garrison had punched. Another seared the ground in front of two others who were obviously from the Cartel - less leather and tattoos and much better weapons. "We need cover!" Brand shot over her shoulder to Jean and Betsy. "Big brain time!"

Sparing Brand a nod, Jean turned back toward the Cartel, telekinetically ripping two car hoods and two doors off of a couple of nearby vehicles to use as shields. "I'll take that," she then added, using top of one of the guy's weapons to smack himself in the face before yanking it from his hand.

This really was more Jean’s area, but needs must. Betsy let her purple dagger grow longer in her hand and rushed the enemy, swiping the blade through cartel soldiers and bikers but mainly relying on the intimidation factor of a big glowing sword before diving for cover behind one of the conveniently placed vehicle parts close to Kane.

Kyle and Sooraya take on the flanking Cartel people, and Kyle is definitely not himself. Or perhaps he’s too much of himself?

Kyle swiped bloody hair off his forehead, and growled deep. His skin was already mottled with bruises and scrapes. He caught the flash of a knife out of the corner of one eye, and lunged, shoving the man away but taking a cut to his forearm for his troubles. He pulled back, slapped his hand to the wound and crouched down, hissing in pain.

Sooraya caught a tire iron on one arm, the heavy weight only slightly denting the sand, while her other arm exploded in a pole shape into the man's gut. He went down, gurgling and curling around his gut. She scanned the battlefield, catching sight of Kyle crouching on the battlefield. Spying no cartel members immediately nearby, she hurried over and shifted back to her normal form to speak. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Kyle snapped, flicking blood off the already healing slice. "Just sick of these assholes." He stood and shook out his hand. "Okay, what next?"

"Well..." Sooraya glanced around, quickly surveying the field and caught something glittering in the trees. "Looks like we've a few brave ones trying to get away... or set up an ambush. Want to ruin their plans?"

That was probably the second best thing he'd heard all day. Kyle flashed an ugly, sharp grin, and without answering, went down on all fours. A moment later he was racing towards one of the cartel thugs. A leap, and he was on top of one, claws in the man's face. He did glance up at the harsh sound of sand, as Sooraya followed, but not for long, returning to punching his target in the face.

Sharp whips replaced her hands and lashed out, sending two men to the ground and leaving them there moaning. A third was caught by a tendril wrapping around his chest and smacking him into a nearby tree. The three in front of her down, she threw a glance over her shoulder to see how Kyle was holding up.

Kyle was still tussling with the same biker, taking blows that normally the feral mutant would have easily dodged. But oddly, despite the blood oozing from a mangled eyebrow and the bruises mottling his skin, he was laughing as the biker threatened him. "Look fucko, how about you shut the fuck up." He snorted, spat blood in the biker's face and then headbutted him, cracking the man's nose and not even blinking at the pained yowl his opponent left out.

"Think he is mostly out for the count." Sooraya commented loosely as she made her way over to them, pausing to kick one brave cartel member down who was trying to rise again.

"Or I could hit him a few more times." Kyle growled as he bounced the man's head off the ground. "Pretty sure they deserve worse than concussions and stitches."

"Of course he does." Sooraya stepped closer, hoping to get him to focus on her. "But I bet there are more who deserve to get their butt kicked just as much..."

Garrison and Betsy multitask by taking on Cartel soldiers and bantering.

Betsy readjusted her grip on the pistol that came with the uniform she was wearing. While time it was nice to have something with a bit more range than her psychic blade after last time, she didn’t think she would ever get comfortable with projectile weapons, even if she did know how to use them now. In theory at least. She sent out some feelers before contacting Kane with a psychic nudge: ~Two more coming our way now. I assume we do have a plan?~

"Send them packing. Make sure they know that mutant Feds got the guns and arrested the Secret Empire. I think you should be the one to cuff Callisto. I've already had my nose broken this year." Kane grinned at her, even as he fired several shots, forcing both of the Cartel soldiers to go scrambling for cover. "Federal agents! Put down your weapons!" He yelled.

~I like my nose, and you’ll have better luck pulling of the rugged look,~ she argued, pausing to aim at one of the soldiers. They seemed to be wearing body armour, so she didn’t feel too bad about going for centre mass. The grunts were baseline human as far as she could tell, and would go down with a hit or two, but should remain among the living. She didn’t have anything flashy to include in the powers front but false memories were easy enough to slip in to the general chaos.

"Oh sure. Just because you look better in a thong, I get the broken nose. I'm complaining to HR." Kane moved in a blur, snapping out his retractable baton. The blow took the Cartal soldier square in the chest, cracking the impact plate in his armor in half and sending him end over end into the dirt. A shot went high past him and Kane put a bullet through the other man's ankle, forcing him to staggering back screaming.

~Keep pushing. These guys aren't that commited to this.~ His thoughts were clear in her head.

~According to the people who saw the nanite video, that part is debatable. I guess it depends on what one is into,~ Betsy shrugged as she crouched and swirled her glowing sword through the kneecaps of two nearest cartel thugs, leaving them to fall silently to the ground. The move left her flank open, allowing a third fighter to take his chance. Unfortunately for him, he decided against using his gun and tried to rush her instead, only to find out that the blade was suddenly in her other hand and sticking halfway through his chest.

His hands tried to grasp the purple glowing blade, as if it was a physical form he could pull out. But his hands swiped through it effortlessly. His eyes rolled up in the back of his head as he collapsed. The sudden appearance of the glowing weapon made a considerable impact on the soldiers, which was almost immediately reinforced by Kane casually lifting a large fallen tree with one hand and tossing it at them. Frantic yells of 'Mutante!' started to echo through the group.

~A-ha! I knew you people had been sharing it! I should have charged money.~

Betsy added a bit of flair by letting the blade dematerialise from one hand and reappear in the other, before brandishing it at the next grunt. It now had the general appearance of a longsword, and she used it accordingly by taking a wide swing at the man, then grabbing the blade and thrusting it through his armour after he dodged the blow before turning her attention back to Kane. ~I personally didn’t see it, but it did make an impact to certain parts of the mansion population, and it’s not a place that does secrets well.~

"Well, that's always been my goal." The men started to break in front of them. He fired multiple shots, although this time aiming behind them to keep them moving as they retreated back towards the woods. "To impact certain parts of the people in the mansion."

Gabriel and Jean get down to business.

Jean stared down the cartel soldiers as they fanned out around her. "I'm having a bad day, guys. Let's make this quick," she said as a couple of crates flew in their direction, aimed to knock them off their feet.

A few of the cartel soldiers staggered back, taken by surprise, and Jean's advance blew one man off his feet. But one man, whose heavily tattooed arms practically exploded out of his shirt, had been undisturbed and reached for his gun. As he drew, Gabriel appeared in front of and knocked him off balance. "Yeah, boys," he said. "Ándale."

As more men seemed to take the place of the tattooed man and his fallen buddies and decided to fire at them, Jean narrowed her eyes, bringing up a telekinetic shield in front of her and Gabriel to block the bullets.

"Do you need incentive?" all jovial tone was missing from Jean's voice. She sounded almost emotionless.

A low scraping sound was heard from their right, as something very large flew toward the cartel members' direction. Two of them saw what it was: a forklift, and quickly dove for cover, while one was unfortunate enough to get pinned to the wall by the protruding slats, not enough to necessarily hurt him but he was definitely not going anywhere.

The other two men scrambled to get to their feet, wildly firing, but still finding their bullets bouncing off of a shield.

"Puta!" one screamed.

"Sabes," Gabriel fired back. "That's just not very nice." The bullets kept coming, and Gabriel crossed his arms and waited for the men to empty their clips. As they went to reload, he used his powers, speeding in front of the men and snatching the guns out of their hands. "Mean boys don't get to play with toys."

Jean expanded the shield outward toward the men that were firing at her, until the bullets started bouncing the men's direction, which was definitely not something they wanted, so they stopped firing. But the shield kept coming until they were backed into a corner.

But she sensed someone behind her, and the cock of a gun. She turned, just in time to glance another rat a tat tat of bullets at her from a particularly energetic cartel member with a cowboy hat. He let out a whoop and a holler.

"Let's dance, chica! I'll fuck you up."

Gabriel snorted. Then, he went into overdrive, using his powers to appear behind the man and striking a blow to the back of the knees. The gang member yelped in pain as he hit the ground.

"God," he said, kicking the man in the stomach for good measure, then squatting briefly to grab the man's cowboy hat so he could put it on. "You really ought to be more respectful."