2013.10.20 - Anti-Mutant Rally

It hasn't been widely advertised but posters were put up and chatter among the usual community involved. After Warren Worthington's pro-mutant rally, several groups were demanding something be done to counter the 'mutant menace'. So they arranged their own little gathering of hateful people. Led by members of the Sapien League, they've set up shop in a park in Suicide Slum. On a cobbled together stage, there's a man dressed like an army surplus reject wearing a skull mask painted red white and blue with a microphone. "We're not going to stand by and let those genefreaks endanger our kids or our schools! They act like they're above us all, destroying our city and and taking what they want! They can't be trusted! We outta round 'em all up kill 'em all!" the man goes on, earning cheers and yells from the crowd of angry looking people.

Incognito.

With the dark blue fuzz hidden away behind the technological mask made by Stark Industries, the Amazing Nightcrawler is in the audience looking remarkably human. Normal, though not normal for him. Any who know him, however, would recognize this 'face' as being one of the two that he prefers. And this isn't his 'Errol Flynn' look. It's his 'what the elf would look like without being blue and fuzzy'. Brown hair, brown eyes, same chisled features, wiry, and of course, tailless. (It's actually tightly clamped down so as not to brush anyone in the growing crowd. Dressed in jeans, shirt, jacket and hightop black sneakers (no, no loafers), he fits in pretty well.

Finding a spot in the center of the crowd, those brown eyes that hide featureless yellow orbs watch the stage, hands dropped into his jacket pockets. Kurt listens to the hate, the rhetoric, and stares almost in disbelief. Still? Though, he's got to be careful, and he schools his expression again, looking away to guage the audience.

Are they buying this?

Kurt hasn't come alone. Amanda Sefton -- Daytripper -- also stands amidst the crowd... though not with Kurt. She stands closer to the fringe, more the curious passerby than the in-the-thick-of-it type. Unlike her friend, Amanda's mutation isn't so visible. And, indeed, there are many that often forget she actually is a mutant, assuming that all her powers come from magic and not the x-gene. For the most part, they're right. Most of her powers are from magic.

But not all of them.

But, even if she were, in fact, without the x-gene, she would find this hate repulsive. It's no different, really, than the invective spat at her people -- gypsies -- in Europe. It's just a different focus, now. 'We don't want those dirty gypsies in our town; kick them out!' Same song, different lyrics.

Standing on the edge, as she is, she spends more of her time scoping out the general lay of the land, looking at the stage configuration and what that says about the 'show' the organizers have planned, as much as trying to ID those in the crowd that may be plants and rabble rousers.

Her lips press together briefly. (I've got a bad feeling about this.)

It wasn't the first time Senri had found herself in less-savory neighborhoods, and it doubtless wouldn't be the last. This time, though, she had special reason. A poster advertising this little get-together had found its way onto a roof she had happened past and so... "(Here I am, and hopefully I can rain on their parade. Would serve them right, too.)" Her normally cheerful face is dark now, and the scowl she wears is not at all out of place, if for an entirely different reason. "(I'm not liking where they're going with the 'round 'em up and kill 'em all' bit. I hope...)" She cuts off that line of thought forcibly, not wanting to jinx it. Her diminuitive height leaves her at a distinct disadvantage here, so she has worked her way off to the side. Her attention is on the stage, but all her senses strain to keep tabs on the crowd. The potential for violence is huge, and only growing larger. Her normal modus operandi would be to allow herself to be jostled toward the front of the crowd. "(But that won't work here. I'd spark them off quick as quick. Just like the last lovely gathering I got caught in...)"

"I say if they want that Genosha dump to themselves, we let 'em have it! And drive 'em from our borders! And if they refuse to go, that's it for 'em!" the man on stage goes on. "We don't need those dirty genequeers in this country or anywhere near our homes!" he's certainly repetetive and the crowd is eating it up. The man on stage is starting to wave a gun around as he speaks too. "In fact we caught a bunch of those mutie freaks taking up apartments near here and I'd say it's time they got evicted!" he calls, signalling someone off the stage. A few more similarly dressed people start to walk up on stage rudely pushing some more people. All obvious mutants. A woman with bat wings bound with belts, a man that's been gagged, and a younger boy that seems to be glowing. All of them are handcuffed and scared as they're marched on stage. The man tries to resist only to get hit in the back of the head and all three get shoved down to their knees. "Now what should we do with 'em?" the man with the gun calls to the crowd, getting a variety of responses.

Kurt has heard all of this before; not only directed towards gypsies, but directly at him. With villagers waving torches and pitchforks. And he wasn't even a scant handful of days old! As he's gotten older and has seen more of the world, this sort of rhetoric fills him with sadness. Pity.

That pity, however, turns rapidly to anger as the three are led out and onto the stage. All obvious mutants.

Glancing back to where he knows Amanda is moving around, Kurt cranes his neck to catch a peek. The moment he does find her, direct eye-contact is made, and there is that look. One born of having worked and played together for so long, there's a certain ability to expect the other's reactions to any given situation. In this case, Nightcrawler is more than ready to *bamf* onto the stage and set the mutants free before turning on the man with the gun.

It's the crowd control that's a bit iffy.

A single word is mouthed, no sound escaping, "Liebling?"

From her vantage point just right of the stage, Amanda can very quickly see the way the wind is blowing on this particular night. She mutters a soft expletive, in a foreign tongue, under her breath.

Her eyes seek out Nightcrawlers, in the midst of the crowd. There's that look. The unvoiced word. The blonde gives a very small nod of her head in response. Yes. She can work on crowd control. Though, with this many angry people? It could be a bit of a challenge.

She starts to fall back, moving off to one side where a scaffolding has been erected. Ostensibly, it's there as part of a repair effort in the park. But, everyone knows that's going nowhere. Amanda, however, just wants a higher vantage point. One that will keep her out of the line of fire when she starts laying down shields and illusions.

Hiding herself beneath the criss-crossing bars, she begins whispering a soft spell -- a shield to separate those mutants from the rest of the crowd, so Kurt can get in without anyone else getting hurt. It will be ready to go when he makes his first bamf.

"(A~nd I jinxed it. Or maybe not. Either way: crap. Well, it's bad. Might as well make it worse and hope it works out.)" She stands stock still, the scowl fixed on her face now one of fierce concentration. She reaches out to the air around her, coaxing and chivvying it, then thrusts it abruptly and violently downward. Right on top of the stage. The downdraft careens into the makeshift structure and fans out in all directions, the next best thing to an outright tornado. She lets the wind run its course, only making sure to part it around the hostages. The moment she releases the wind upon the gathering, she begins moving toward the stage, letting herself be jostled just as she had wanted to do just minutes earlier.

The crowd's angry and hateful calls fill the air but that air is getting chilly. There's even some snow starting to fall. The man with the microphone raises his hands to get the crowd to quiet and then walks over to the mutants on stage. He picks the glowing boy and has one of the others shove the kid forward. "We'll wipe 'em out of our country then bomb the hell out of Genosha. Starting with this little piece of scum here..." the man trails off, taking aim at the kid. He squeezes the trigger and...nothing. "What the hell?" he asks, squeezing the trigger again. This time...ice and a frozen bullet slide slowly out of the barrel and shatter on the stage. The man starts to question this and then...

PAFF!

Snowball right to the masked face that knocks the man flat on his ass. This leads to some surprised and confused reactions from the crowd. There's some yells as what looks like a wall of ice erupts from under the staqe itself and knocks the other armed people back from the hostages. Then there's that wind starting up and making things even more chaotic. Some people in the crowd are starting to shove and run for it and others are blaming it all on the 'mutie scum' while calling for their deaths more intensely. None seem to have located the source of this chilly chaos yet though.

Wind. A windstorm? Who did that? There's no real time to search the audience for the suspect, though there is a brief prayer of thanks for the added support.

The breeze whips around, his jacket begins to dance around.

It's the nod that's given, the silent 'go'. Kurt disappears in a cloud of brimstone and *bamf*, and reappears upon the stage as the first iceball hits. Those brown eyes look out and around; only one person he knows does that!

Bobby!

And, the team is set. Kurt reaches the first, the bat-winged mutant, and tears the belt off with a heart felt, "Go!" before he turns about to help rescue the others.

Combat bamf to the rescue!

Amanda looks up as the wind and ice and snow cut loose.

Her thought echoes Kurt's. Bobby!

As for the wind... Storm? But there's not the same tell-tale lightning that's inevitable with the weather goddess.

Regardless, the urban witch doesn't have time to be distracted by that. If there are X-Men out there, she and Kurt know how to work with them. And they should know how to work with her and Kurt. So, she releases her shield spell, covering the three mutants while Kurt gets them out. As people start to stampede, however, she decides a little bit of a more proactive crowd control hand is needed.

Wind to push people back and help direct them into harmless channels would be handy. But the sorceress can't do that. What she can do, however, is start building more of those magenta shields to do the same thing, create corridors through which the fleeing rabble must pass in order to escape the area.

There are two things that matter to her: getting the mutants out safely, and making sure the humans don't stampede themselves to death. She doesn't really care about rounding them up. No court is going to convict them, unfortunately. And terrorizing them won't make the situation better. So, in true X-Men style -- for all she's not actively on the roster any longer (are any of them any more?) -- she works trusts her team mates to get the trio of victims out while she concentrates on keeping the crowd from overflowing into violence.

Pity her hypnotism isn't strong enough to take on a full crowd.

Crowd control? What's that? Senri's first thought was to pull the same trick again, only on the crowd. But seeing as -she- was in the crowd, she'd need a different approach. She thought furiously, only to have her attention drawn by the fact that her contribution had kicked off a much more expertly executed rescue. She watched in fascination even as a large corner of her mind worked on the matter of roping the stampede..."(Aha! That might work.)" Falling into something of a trance state, she closed her eyes and sent feelers of awareness through the crowd, allowing the disturbances caused in the air to translate themselves into bodies in her mind's eye. Wherever she sensed someone falling, she would buffet the crowd away from and around them until they regained their feet. She noted that they were being herded by someone else's efforts and worked with it, guiding the flow as gently as she would the air itself. Seeing as the ringleaders seemed to be well taken care of, she left it at that.

Almost as an afterthought, she calmed the churning air left from her opening move, unconsciously projecting a soothing attitude, as if she were a jockey, and the air a racehorse. Opening her eyes, her knees sagged abruptly and it was all she could do to keep her feet. "(Whe~w! I'll be feeling -this- for a while!)"

As soon as her wings are freed, the winged woman spreads them. She grabs the glowing kid and takes off into the air leaving the gagged man to be BAMF'd to safety. "Waste the mutie lovers too!" the microphone man yells as he starts to get up. He doesn't get far before...PAFF! PAFF! Two snowballs. The three other militant ringleaders start to draw weapons and shoot after the flying woman since they have no idea where Kurt went to. Two of those guns end up as frozen chunks of ice as a beam of frigid energy lances out at them. "Seriously, you still haven't caught on?" comes from the Iceman. Where is he? Standing on a branch in a nearby tree that's devoid of it's leaves. The crowd meanwhile is scattering. They're a lot less brave when actually faced with people standing up to them and that wind and forcefield combo is definitely heelping to keep them from crushing one another.

Amanda knows Kurt, and the kid he rescued will be fine. The winged woman has the man in hand, and Bobby has them both covered. With shots ringing out, however, the sorceress breathes a spell and her appearance ripples, street clothes becoming ensorcelled combat armour. Because, seriously, things just got real. She springs skyward, levitating up to where she has a better vantage point to see. Of course, it'll make her a target, but that's what shields are for. And now that the crowds have scattered, what really matters are the ring leaders. Well, that and whomever it was that conjured those helpful winds.

Daytripper definitely keeps an eye out for that.

Senri shakes her head sharply, banishing her fatigue as best as she can. "(Well, with the hostages freed, the crowd scattered, and those pesky guns taken out of commission, I think I can just about call it a day. Only... crap! What if someone recorded me? Oh, I do -not- need this!)" She lets out her breath in a soft sigh. "(Well, no helping it now. At least I don't have some kind of goofy and distinctive costume. I think I'm gonna go sit down somewhere. That fire escape over there seems like a nice spot.)" Her eye is caught by sudden movement, though, and she watches as a woman floats rapidly into the air. "(I doubt I can hide from her. She has the high ground.)" With that thought, she lowers herself onto the ground, sitting in a wobbly but serviceable seiza.

Two out of three guns down, that leaves just one firing in Iceman's direction now. He doesn't seem too concerned, just raising an ice barrier between himself and the bullets. This leaves the man with the gun open to a Daytrippy attack. Iceman's spotted Daytripper too and it's just making him grin. Thankfully no one is hassling Senri as she tries to get away. Just the last few people shoving and scrambling away.

Daytripper's eyes alight, briefly, on Senri -- long enough to see her face and realize she's the wind-wielder. Does the Institute need to send out a recruiter?

Time enough to worry about that later. For now? Daytripper spreads her hands and speaks words of power. The metal of the forgotten microphone and its cord come to life, whipping around the man and binding him fast, pulling his arm down to his side, where the gun can do no more harm. The cord squeezes tighter and tighter around his wrist until he is either forced to let go or in danger of having his wrist broken.

"You really want to let go of the weapon," the witch says, floating down towards him, facing him, now. "Because, if you don't, you're going to need surgery. I promise."

Still watching the sky, and the woman in particular, it comes as no surprise to Senri that she is seen, and their eyes meet for a moment...Or rather, they're looking right at each other, at least. She summons up a weak smile and waves slightly, mouthing, "Hi, mom". "(Dunno if she saw that, but eh. -I- think it's funny,)" she thinks wryly. In no condition to move, (and rather comfortable here, thank you) she watches with a sort of detached amazement as the woman finishes the clean-up. Her earlier suspicions are only further confirmed. She, and whoever she was working with, was a professional.

The man holds onto his gun as long as he's able, trying to aim at Daytripper even as the chord squeezes his wrist. Eventually the weapon drops and the man ends up with a cracked wrist. The man that had been starting this all tries to get up as well but...PAFF. This time the iceball nails him someplace much more sensitive than the head. Iceman grins as he slides over to Daytripper and offers her a hand. "We should get moving. I called in the boys in blue. Coffee, on me?" ...yes, he's flirting after a fight. Question that professional status!