2012-07-31 Bodega Brewhaha

Anti-mutant protests are not entirely uncommon. There are many hateful people who dislike others who are different from them, causing them to distrust the mere presence of mutants, metas and others that don't exactly fit into their happy little world image. A group of such wonderful people are currently protesting the fact that one of the shops that has recently opened up is ran by a mutant - a man who has green skin and has been reputed to have some kind of pheromone-like power - those seeking to block the door to the establishment carrying signs and shouting lewdly put phrases.

Rogue caught wind of the chaos and put a call in, letting others in the Brotherhood know what's happening, and then she flew to the shop where she is now. She's trying to get the people to dispurse but they easily outnumber her, the protesters totaling in twenty-five to her one.

Anti-mutant protests were something Mystique was never really fond of; but she preferred to look at the larger picture. The more hatred of mutants that was out there, the easier it would be to slip this city - if not the entire world, into a mutants versus humans war. Not that Raven wanted to see an innocent mutant get hurt in the overall encounter.

With this in mind, after she gets the call, she arrives on the scene - mirrored sunglasses set over platinum blonde hair, tied back in a bun. She was wearing the form of a woman - fit and strong-looking - wearing street clothes, more or less - khakis, and a t-shirt, clothes designed more for comfort and mobility than anything else. Bringing up her cell phone, she whispers into it, the communication going out to the phones - or headsets, of all other brotherhood in the area. "What's the situation here?" she says.

An anti-mutant mob stirring up trouble? Must be Tuesday. From a well-hidden Secret Base, the man on monitor duty receives the call from Rogue. Judging by the empty cartons of Chinese food on the floor, Quicksilver apparently didn't have anything better to do than respond immediately. And so, respond immediately he does. Shortly after the call is completed, Quicksilver is on the scene, blurring into a solid figure outside the range of the mob's vision. From his vantage point in an alley, he scopes out the scene, doing his best to exercise that esoteric virtue called 'patience.'

However, there happens to be a homeless guy in the alley that Quicksilver chose for his hiding spot. Unfortunately for the homeless guy, not only has he seen Quicksilver but he is also wearing a bulky hooded overcoat. A few seconds later, Quicksilver is walking at normal human speed toward the commotion, wearing one of the dirtiest coats in New York over his costume. A buzzing happens in his earpiece, and he mutters just loudly enough for the device to pickup his voice "Some monkeys are flinging their poo, looks like. I'm on the scene, how do we want to proceed?"

Ever since this particular bodega opened, Logan has found himself returning every few days. Sometimes, it's for beer; sometimes cigarettes, or food. Once, he walked inside and just wandered around for fifteen minutes without buying anything. Even /he/ can't really put a finger on why; it certainly has nothing to do with mutant solidarity; something about it just /feels/ right, and that's been enough for the long-lived mutant.

Today, he is--/displeased/, to say the least, that people have seen fit to disrupt his shopping ritual. He's a few feet away from the barred door, wearing a thoroughly unamused expression as he stares right into the eyes of one of the front most protesters; his arms are crossed and he's been standing there since he arrived a few minutes ago.

"I'm tellin' you," he says in a low, controlled voice, "I got all day, bub; hope you all got sleepin' bags for this boycott. You're gonna--" He cuts himself off and sniffs the air a couple of times; his eyes trail towards the arriving Raven as he finishes, "--/be/--here a while."

Mysti's arrival is noticed by Rogue who is standing off to the side, the oddly-colored haired Belle keeping herself out of the line of fire. "It seems like people can't play together nicely, Mother," comes that slow drawled out answer, Rogue's voice easily picked up by the small headset-like coms unit she has in place. She almost says something further but then Pietro speaks, his own statement getting her eyes to roll. "Stow the hate, Pietro," she can not help but to grunt. "No sense in addin' fuel to the fire, y'know?" Shaking her head, she turns her attention towards the store before moving in to close the gap between Logan and herself.

The protestors are yelling, not at all calmed by Logan, each person shouting out angrily. Cries of 'mutant lover' and 'get that freak out of our neighborhood' fill the air, the volume of their screams rising as is their tempers. Seems like a fight is going to break out.

If Raven had noticed Logan yet, it did not seem like it, her eyes scanning the crowd as a wicked little smile touches her lips. Bringing up her phone again, she whispers into it, "You know, I don't think these people are going to disperse because we ask nicely, dear daughter," she whispers into the phone, her eyes scanning the crowd again. It was during that scan that her eyes catch sight of Logan's own, and the blonde-haired woman in the sunglasses cants her head to the side, a wicked little grin touching her lips.

"I say we give them a reason to disperse, hmm? Pietro; you may be able to use the grenade in my right pocket more efficiently than myself," says Raven, her stolen brown eyes fixed upon Logan. A pause, and she straightens her neck, lowering her cell phone as she steps towards the rear of the gathering crowd, her eyes finally leaving Logan to fix upon a middle-aged man, near the back of the ground.

"Grenades? Pfft! I don't think the Pitchfork Mafia really justifies that." Quicksilver keeps his head down, the hood of the old bum's coat keeping him from attracting any attention. Trudging so slowly toward the back of the crowd is an exercise in self-flagellation, if the pained expression on his face is any indication. But trudge slowly he does, finally coming to a stop with his hands in his pockets. "Besides... I'm more of a Johannes Vermeer than a Jackson Pollack." An older member of the mob takes a break from yelling obscenities to look at the hobo who knows the difference between Vermeer and Pollack, but he quickly dismisses it as crazy talk and goes back to protesting. "On the other hand... grenades are only crude if you can't think up a creative place to put it." Quicksilver apparently has a lot to think about now.

Logan just stares as the crowd hurls insults at him. He doesn't try to reply at first, as they seem pretty set on this whole 'mindless bigotry' thing; the way his exasperation gradually overtakes his features as his attention returns to the group says plenty. After a full minute of listening to these people shout 'mutie' and 'mutant lover' a few feet away from him, he is agitated to the point of tapping one booted foot impatiently on the ground as he frowns at the assemblage.

"Yeah, I got it," he finally, flatly grumbles to one of the protesters. "I love mutants; are we--"

'...grenades are only crude if...'

Immediately, the diminutive mutant stands up a little straighter, and after quickly searching the crowd, his eyes fix on the guy in the baggy coat that sort of smells like a dead, homeless skunk.

"You need to /go/," he growls to the people. No way of knowing how much time they've all got before the explosions - if any - come. "Now--"

"No, /you/ need to go, /freak/!" one woman proudly interjects. "Back to--back to--"


 * SNIKT!*

"/Now/," Logan repeats; a row of claws separate his face from hers, now. After giving them a moment to register this, he begins backing away from the store, hoping to draw them along.

The group goes totally insane upon seeing Logan's claws, the sight of which whips them all into a frenzy immediately. His plans work and soon he's able to played Pied Piper and draw off the majority of the mob along with a few stragglers lingering behind.

Rogue looks a bit baffled, upset at how this is all turning out. Nothing feels like it's going to end well between Logan getting the group to go elsewhere and Mystique and Pietro talking about grenades she eventually winds up with her palm held to her face. "Why are y'all intent on making this worse," she asks her fellow Brotherhood members before launching herself into the air. A person who can fly and isn't one of the known heroes immediately gets rocks thrown at her but they bounce off without so much as scratching her skin, those who do notice her yelling obscenities and such at her.

"And there we go;" Mystique says, lifting up her cell phone to her lips again. Eyebrows quirk as Logan shows his claws, and she tilts her head to one side, letting her now-brown eyes track his motion. "We'll talk about this later, dear Rogue," she says, her voice coy with a subtle promise. It might not be a pleasant promise. "But if we just bomb the crowd, Quicksilver, that won't help us at all. What if we make it appear one of them tried to bomb the mutant's shop? Just blow out a front window, or something harmless; something harmless that will make these humans appear like the violent fanatics that they are, and incite mutants to our cause, hmm?"

"Aww... Rogue wants to keep the monkeys as pets. How precious." The condescending tone in Quicksilver's voice is so thick it's surprising it fits through the transmitter of his earpiece. "You might just have to pick the cutest one Rogue, do you know how much it would cost to feed that many of them? We'd need to build like three McDonald's in our Secret Base." At this point, Quicksilver has begun weaving his way through the unwashed throngs and heading toward Mystique in the least conspicuous way possible. Sure, he gets unpleasant looks, but he's getting the looks because of his disguise and his apparent babbling, not because of any suspicion from the crowd. Truth be told, even if he did do some sort of power stunt he still wouldn't draw the crowd's attention away from the flying chick and the guy with hand knives.

"Yeah... that was pretty much what I was thinking. Propaganda stuff." That wasn't pretty much what Quicksilver was thinking. Standing right next to Mystique, he holds open the pocket of his coat without once looking at her.

As he backs across the street, Logan gives the bodega one last, regretful look; it was nice while it lasted, but there's no way he's coming back to this neighborhood out of costume any time soon.

"That's right," he mutters, waving the claws in front of his face a little to egg them on. "Just like that, y'--" Rogue takes to the skies and he looks up when the protestors do, eyes widening a touch. /More/ superhumans--/actual/ superhumans, unlike that poor green guy.

Snippets of the three mutant Siblings' conversation manage to peak above the din of the crowd, but /most/ of Logan's attention is on getting the humans away from the store and keeping an eye on the flier; the sound of their voices stands out far more than any particular details, mostly because they aren't shouting about hating mutants non-stop.

After a few feet - somewhere around the middle of the street - he plants his feet and spreads his arms wide, claws sliding back into their housings. He may not know Rogue, but he can recognize the danger of letting these demonstrators pelt a flying girl with rocks when they were already kind of fired up to begin with; he has to do /something/ to get them the hell out of here. He searches around for a moment to find the rank, would-be bomber, but all he can get is his scent--and Raven's curiously, empty aroma.

"Yeah, you think /I'm/ dangerous, but--you see /her/?" He points up at Rogue manages to flash the crowd a sharp, predatory grin despite the assault of Pietro's coat on his senses. "Her mutant power's flyin' around and makin' people disappear." Beat; he presses his index finger to his temple and the grin widens. "With her /mind/. Only works on bigots, though--racists, sexists. Y'know. Somethin' about turnin' people's dark sides against 'em. They call her 'The Emancipator'." He folds his arms over his chest and shoots one of the protestors out in front a hard look.

"But you guys shouldn't have anything to worry about... right?" He cants his head curiously to one side and arches a brow. "Just a bunch'a concerned citizens who've probably got homes t' be gettin' back to."

Logan's ruse works and the crowd's quick to get out of there, running off in all directions. From Rogue's vantage point it's like watching rats fleeing a sinking vessel. That makes her confused as she can't hear what was said by the clawed one from where she's hovering in mid-air but she can't help but to be relieved that the situation seems to be taken care of.

"Ah don't think that grenade's going to be needed now, Mother," comes the belle's voice from over the comms. "Ah think that guy with the blades took care of it." Not that she expects Pietro to not carry out whatever he has planned. She hopes he won't, of course, but is fully expecting the worst.

"Of course you were. It's all about branding, right? We're just branding the enemy," Mystique says, lowering her cell phone from her lips. A subtle little motion, and the grenade is pulled from a pouch at her side, and seen only for a flash, before she discreetly drops it into Pietro's pocket, all without looking at the other. "You know - if you manage to place it where..." she makes certain the microphone on her phone was off, "...where it might rain glass upon the crowd or something, my feelings wouldn't be hurt one bit," she says, a wicked little smile on her lips as she starts to step away from him, her eyes tracking up towards Rogue as she lifts her phone again.

Of course, then, the crowd starts to disperse more quickly, and Mystique's expression sours. Now, she glances towards Pietro, giving him a disappointed sort of look. "We need to talk later, dear," Mystique says, her voice hard. "About what we are doing for our people," with that, she flips the cell phone off, and the woman turns her eyes up towards Rogue, lifting a hand to shield her gaze from the sun.

"God, she sucks!" Quicksilver glares directly at the only Brotherhood member who has less of a flair for villainous intrigue than himself. His headset is left on, he doesn't care whether or not Rogue's feelings get hurt. Still remaining motionless, and standing directly beside Mystique, it has become pretty obvious which people here aren't part of the angry mob. However, he attempts to be inconspicuous for a few more seconds. "You know what? I can still turn this into a marketing opportunity." Suddenly, the coat he was wearing is suspended in air, and Quicksilver is gone.

A few seconds later, the windows of cars start getting mysteriously getting bashed, and the alarms of the fancier ones start going off. A greenish blur comes to a stop on the roof of one of the cars, and Quicksilver stretches as if glad to be out of the hobo coat. "That's it monkeys! Run from the loud noises. This street belongs to the Brotherhood of Mutants now... of which we are all members." Quicksilver sweeps his arm dramatically, in order to include himself, the flying woman, and the knife hand guy. He leaves out Mystique though. "Run home and tell your ugly, poorly-educated children that they're... probably going to be... No! Tell them that they're /definitely/ going to be slaves when they grow up!" Nobody seems to be paying attention to any of the specifics of Quicksilver's attempt to grab the spotlight, so busy are they with their running.

"Yeah," Logan mutters as the crowd runs for it. "Like I thought."

Somewhere in the back of his mind - amongst decades of fragmented memories and inner turmoil - he's picturing a willowy, nasally-voiced caricature of Scott Summers delivering a stern lecture on the dangers of inciting anti-mutant hysteria among humans; after a few seconds, he spits on the ground with a little growl and slides his hands into his pockets. The grin is long gone; something still stinks--

No, wait, the coat is on the ground, all of a sudden. How di--

"Rrr--!" The street explodes after all, only with screeching car alarms and shattering glass instead of--well, /fire/ and shattering glass; Logan - who is still standing in the middle of it all - clutches his ears and nearly falls to his knees as a dozen high-pitched 'voices' cry out and then /continue/ crying out until their owners come along to silence them. His eyes nearly bug out of his skull at first, but he squeezes them shut pretty quickly; similarly, he clenches his teeth tightly to keep a lid on his discomfort. Against /that/ backdrop, Pietro's rhetoric is little more than lot of vaguely rebellious-seeming babbling.

Rogue has long ago gotten used to the abusive nature of Quicksilver but she still bristles at his commentary about her, but there are no hurt feelings on her part. What they manage to do is make her angry. "Ya better be glad we're on the same team, Quicksilver," she says just before she swoops down, pitching her dive so that it'll have her just above the ground at the bottom-most part of the arc. Whatever she might have to say is silences, this being no time for in-fighting. Right now it's time for action. She flies close to Mystique and goes to lift her up and out of harm's way, letting Pietro vent his spleen. "Let's get ya out of the way," she whispers to her mother, her gaze lowered just afterward. Where is Logan? She's not even sure now, the explosion and destruction too much of a distraction. Enough of one for her to lose track of the man.

"No; she's misguided," Mystique says, her eyes narrowing a bit as she snaps back at Pietro, her eyes flickering towards him. "I'll deal with it," she adds, her stolen voice curt. And even as Pietro starts his... branding, she was already turning around to start walking away from things. When she... "Woo-oop!" says Mystique, as she is suddenly lifted from the ground. Turning her head to glance towards Rogue, she says, "Thank you, Rogue," she says - at least, before her own eyes go down, trying to track that elusive Wolverine.

"... and just to recap... it's not only this street that's under our protection, but the vast majority of the city as... ah... forget it." Quicksilver brings a hand up and runs it through his hair so quickly that the casual observer might not have even noticed it. He looks behind him, catching the other two thirds of his group making their escape. "Stupid monkeys aren't listening anyway. Shut it down." Having completely lost his audience, he surveys the damage that he caused. More of an annoyance than anything else, but the look of satisfaction on his face obviates the level of success he thinks this mission has had.

But what of the Relatively Good Samaritan who shooed everyone away? Quicksilver notices the short mutant holding his head, and stares at him with one white eyebrow raised skeptically. "This guy looks like shit, but he does have robot hands. Think I'll leave him a calling card, see what he's about." A green blur departs the area, and then returns, standing only a few feet away from Logan. In his hands, another of his red Magneto fliers, albeit with a different caption on the bottom. This one says "The Brotherhood Is Watching." Below it, written in permanent marker, is the address of what appears to be a bar. Casually, Quicksilver drops it, and then vanishes with another burst of speed. However, he leaves the grenade behind in the pocket of the coat he discarded.

Logan is pretty much the only person left on the street once the protestors are gone--at least, the only one without spandex. He's also clutching his head and looking around for some kind of relief from the blaring cacophony, but there are too many cars for that; he has to settle for dragging himself down the street.

That is, until Pietro just sort of appears right in front of him.

"What--" His eyes slide open and fix blearily on the green-clad mutant's as he growls that word through his teeth. He glances at the falling paper for a moment, then peers up at Pietro again, mumbling, "Y--?"

The speedster is gone before the rest of the word even makes it out of his mouth, leaving Logan to snatch the paper and continue trudging towards aural safety.