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Post by Josh Dalton Worthington on Mar 8, 2007 3:05:12 GMT
Ororo, Rogue, Warren, and himself hover over Times Square, unseen by the crowd thanks to a combination of distance and Storm.
Well... it's really only hover for Rogue. Warren had to keep flapping to stay in once place, though he'd been doing a fair amount of gliding to keep his energy up. Storm sort of drifted a little, thanks to the wind keeping her in the air. And he technically didn't fly, at all. His telekinetic powers kept him in the sky.
Anyway, they'd been there for a good while. Apparently Storm needed to slowly roll the clouds out... seemed that freak weather patterns tended to panic New York meteorologists. The Creed man was just taking the stage, and Josh was genuinely curious whether his speech was going to be simple rhetoric or something more interesting. Betting on the rhetoric... He makes a face.
While waiting, his mind drifts back to the scene in the rec room before they'd left. Josh had glanced over his shoulder on his way out and had registered the shocked look on John's face. He didn't tend to lose his temper much, but it had been unavoidable in that case. He was just being a jackass... Unfortunately, Josh wasn't the kind of person who kept grudges, and his outburst made him feel slightly guilty.
"There are a lot of people down there. I hope nothing goes sour..." He glances over at the others.
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Post by Warren Worthington III on Mar 8, 2007 21:18:31 GMT
Flying in an artificial weather pattern is a novel experience for Warren, and at first he can’t put his finger on what exactly feels weird about it. Eventually he starts to recognize the traces of artificial manipulation, not in what’s present but in what’s missing: the absence of eddies and counter-eddies and conflicting currents that real weather is never quite without. It’s a little bit like the difference between a crowd of pedestrians and a marching army.
Which, once he figures it out, makes maintaining altitude much easier… he just finds the right spot in the wind and relaxes into it, like a sustained glide. After a moment he senses a shift in the wind that makes his job even easier, and he gives Ororo a cheerful thumbs-up.
Meanwhile, he scans the large-and-growing crowd for familiar faces, and almost groans in dismay when he recognizes Matthew (difficult to miss, standing practically head-and-shoulders over the crowd). Oh Lord… how did that happen? Well, at least nobody knows he’s a mutant… maybe it won’t be a problem. Warren can tell he’s with someone from his posture, but whoever it is is obscured by the crowd.
> " There are a lot of people down there. I hope nothing goes sour... "
"Me too. It’d be nice to be completely unnecessary for once, I – "
Whatever he was going to say is cut off by a section of the crowd suddenly going violent. What in the world? Hon, are they being mentally influenced? That doesn’t seem natural at all. He bites his lip in frustration, not sure what to do, as the police charge in with weapons raised. Attacking the police is not going to look good, but if the alternative is hovering by idly and letting them open fire on civilians…?
He turns to Storm, happy he’s not trying to run this particular operation. "What do we do?"
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Post by Rogue on Mar 9, 2007 3:11:47 GMT
It’s nice, being able to just… fly. To be doing it during the day, not sneaking out at night so as not to be seen. She hasn’t even done that in awhile, and it feels like getting out and running after sitting in a car for hours and hours, or something…
On the way over, she’d been almost playing around in the air, twisting and varying between speeding ahead and falling back, high above the others for part of the time… Just enjoying it. It’s a good stress relief in itself.
She should feel bad that she’s not paying close attention to the crowd, like she should be. She’s more fascinated by the air, the wind – the way she’s feeling-but-not each breeze, much like she’s discovered she feels heat and cold, or even touch (albeit through cloth, it still… feels different). The clouds – she’s amused by them, somehow, by the way she can literally touch them…
”There are a lot of people down there. I hope nothing goes sour... "
"Me too. It’d be nice to be completely unnecessary for once, I – "[/color]
That he cuts off draws her attention downwards at the crowd, at the sudden spike of violent behavor, and she can’t help the wry smile that crosses her face.
”Looks like w’get t’play afterall.”
And she feels bad as soon as she says it, bad that she’d hoped to see action, and people are getting hurt – because that’s… not good. That’s very bad, really – mutants and humans alike will end up hurt, and there she’d been hoping for it, basically…
"What do we do?"[/color]
She glances over towards Ororo, silently echoing Warren’s question – Josh and Ororo may be able to stop the crowds, with a rainstorm, or TK or even some telepathic trick, but she… has no idea what she should be doing. She’d not really thought about that, her focus having been on the flight and the entertainment of it.
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Post by Ororo Munroe on Mar 9, 2007 4:46:07 GMT
Storm loves to fly. The first time she’d totally surrendered herself to the winds, trusting them to keep her afloat, was one of the most exhilarating moments of her life. There was something about feeling the currents, almost being the currents, that she would miss if her flight stemmed from another kind of mutation. She’d like nothing more than to simply be able to relax and enjoy the afternoon with the others.
Unfortunately, the relatively uneventful day seems to be turning for the worse. A fight appears to be breaking out among those gathered.
> "What do we do?"
There’s the mother of all questions. She’d assumed that if there was a riot, there would be some sort of obvious cause, like inflammatory remarks by Creed. While most of what he’d said was distasteful, a riot seemed to be entirely out of proportion to his comments.
Mmm. No one on their own if possible. With this many potential combatants, one of them could get swallowed by the crowd if they didn’t stick together. Which made it herself and Rogue, and Josh and Warren, since only an idiot would split the boys up after seeing their training records while paired. After analyzing their results she could only postulate that Josh’s telepathy allowed the two to have a preternatural sense of the other’s relative position and status while in combat. However it worked, it increased their effectiveness to a strong degree.
“Okay. No splitting up - too easy to get overwhelmed. Stay with your partner - Rogue, you’re with me. Josh, Warren, be careful. Under no circumstances do we engage the NYPD. They’re not our enemy. Assist them if able - they’re not going to start shooting New York citizens." At least... I hope not. "Try to break up the fighting as best you can, and assist individual citizens as you see fit. If you discover the cause of the riot, let everyone else know.” She taps the small silver device in her ear. “Keep in touch.”
At this, she nods at Rogue, and begins sailing downwards at top speed towards the riot below. The clouds overhead grow darker, and thunderheads loom ominously. The wind picks up strongly.
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Post by Josh Dalton Worthington on Mar 9, 2007 4:47:59 GMT
The fighting seems to start totally randomly, as far as Josh is concerned. He’d been keeping a low-level mental trace on the crowd’s mood, and the anger and viciousness seems to spark across a large portion of crowd all at once. Which doesn’t make much sense.
> Hon, are they being mentally influenced? That doesn’t seem natural at all.
Once again Josh marvels at how their thoughts tend to converge without conscious effort. I... hmm. He stretches out with his senses for a moment. I don’t detect any other telepaths operating in the area. And you’re right - to me, it’s as if all the negative thoughts and emotions started all at once, instead of a ripple effect.
> Josh, Warren, be careful. Under no circumstances do we engage the NYPD. […] Keep in touch.
“Gotcha, Storm.” Josh floats in Warren’s direction. “Where do you want to start? Maybe near the cops? Cause if their first sight of us is Ororo flinging lightning we might be in trouble…” At this, he starts arcing downward towards the crowd, landing at the periphery.
The crowd here seems more confused than enraged, but the fighting seems to be spreading in their direction, and he can see New York police officers setting up what appears to be barricades near their squad cars, and distributing riot shields.
A garbage can comes winging their way, and Josh cocks his head. It freezes in midair for a moment, and then drops to the ground. The people in its path look relieved, but begin glancing over in their direction and whispering amongst themselves.
“What are you doing? Get out of here before it gets worse!” Josh shouts over the din. They nod, and try to make their way onto a side street.
What now, Angel? Using Warren’s code name via telepathy seems a little silly, but for the two of them it has other connotations, so he’s content with it.
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Post by Warren Worthington III on Mar 9, 2007 15:26:45 GMT
> I don’t detect any other telepaths operating in the area.
Warren frowns thoughtfully. He knows Josh isn’t the world’s greatest telepath, but he’s still pretty impressive; it seems unlikely that a mental manipulator could affect a whole crowd so blatantly without leaving some kind of trace Josh could pick up. But that riot isn’t natural.
Hm. Might the rioters be plants? It’s funny; a year ago he wouldn’t have considered mutant activity; now it’s the first thing he thinks about, especially at an anti-mutant rally.
> "Where do you want to start?"
Warren shrugs, not really knowing what to do. Charging in when there’s no obvious threat to neutralize (except for the crowd itself, and what can they really do about that?) doesn’t feel right, but neither does floating around and watching. He’s somewhat relieved when Josh takes the lead, joining the police and helping with crowd control, which makes sense.
> " What are you doing? Get out of here before it gets worse!"
Of course, finding an uncrowded route out of Times Square is implausible even when there isn’t a riot, but here’s something Warren can actually help with… a quick circling of the area on his way down identifies a few likely possibilities. He drops down near the crowd Josh addressed, landing lightly and using his wings as a combination of signal flag and crowd-control line to help them clear out.
Meanwhile, about a block away, the crowd has turned to active violence – and Warren’s windsense picks up something strange in the middle of it, like a small artificial hurricane. “Hey, I saw this one on the news! She completely wrecked a whole supermarket!” shouts an angry voice in the middle of that throng, and while Warren can’t see who the “she” in question is, maybe she’s what incited the crowd to violence?
> What now, Angel?
Even in the middle of all the chaos, Warren allows himself a little grin at that – the only time his silly codename doesn’t sound silly is when it echoes in Josh’s thoughts.
I might have just spotted the cause of all this… some kind of atmospheric-effect female mutant in the middle of that crowd. Hook up with me for a sec; I’m going in for a fly-by and want you to look her over also… maybe if we airlift her out of there the craziness will die down?
(( OOC: Dropping off this thread, going to join Sofia. ))
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Post by Ororo Munroe on Mar 11, 2007 7:40:42 GMT
Storm drops neatly to the ground near the speaker’s platform that’s been constructed. The crowd is going completely crazy, and in the periphery of her vision she can see Warren circling the crowd a good deal farther down, and Josh leaping closer to his location with his powers. In the back of her mind, she feels the currents down the block change, manipulated out of their natural state. Hmm. A moment later, Warren's message over their earpieces clarifies things.
More immediately, the enraged crowd seems to trying to climb up onto the stage and attack Creed and the other higher-ups in the Friends of Humanity. Ororo sighs internally. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like. She didn’t have much sympathy for Creed, and it was tempting to leave him to his own devices.
Except that something didn’t add up. Creed was protesting the mutant actions here at the Baxter Building, and in California at Alcatraz. Why would people at the riot be gunning for him? And each other? Perhaps she had a cynical outlook on life, but mutants never had quite that many allies in place, especially at an event such as this. She nods once. If anything, these people should be attacking us.
Aha… getting ahead of myself. A few bottles and cans are flung in her direction as she gets closer to the enraged portion of the crowd. Or is it coming to me? Nevertheless, she suspects it’s as they spot her glowing eyes, which can’t be helped if she wants to keep control over atmospheric conditions. They spin off into a mini-vortex as they approach, and Storm adds a bit of sparkling electricity near her hands and eyes. The now-terrified rioters disappear back into the masses.
Back to Creed…Storm lifts herself off the ground and begins manipulating the wind into a gale-force blast aimed to knock back those swamping the stage. The maneuver is fairly effective, as those in the front topple back into the crowd, and no more forward progress is made. Strangely, the longer she continues the assault, the calmer the crowd immediately adjacent to the stage becomes. Most of their expressions turn from angry to confused, and they stop trying to make their way forward. She adjusts the speed of the wings whipping forth accordingly.
As she touches down onto the stage, Creed appears to be screaming murder. His advisors and supporters there all look confused, but unlike the crowd, their confusion turns to anger as they recognize her. None of them look stupid enough to try anything, however.
Except one. He pulls a gun from somewhere, and aims it in her direction. Storm flings a lightning bolt from her fingertips in his direction, and he goes flying off the stage like a ragdoll. The rest of Creed’s cronies look even less inclined to tangle with her.
“Impulse, Angel - the crowd is behaving extremely erratically. After knocking them back with wind, they seem to lose their violent tendencies. Are we dealing with a telepath?” Storm has to shout over the wind. She assumed that if Josh had detected telepathic activity, he would have spoken up already.
(Crossing over into 'Sound and the Fury')
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Post by Rogue on Mar 12, 2007 1:34:24 GMT
Rogue’s been mostly playing catch, so far – random objects are being hurled about above the crowd, and, following Storm, she’d just been catching whatever comes her way, swooping down and snagging things out of the air. Once Ororo lands onstage, she moves to the ground a little away, depositing the objects, which are in a metal trashcan she’d dipped down and caught just before it had made impact with someone’s head, and then taking back to the air overhead.
”[…] Rogue, do you think you can check it out? He’s somewhere between you and the stage. A boy.”[/color]
”’M on it, hon.” she responds, dipping down slightly to look over the crowd. Spotting what looks to be the target – a boy who’s looking towards the stage, holding a gasmask to his face… Yeah, seems about right…
“Think I found ‘im. Gonna drop in…” She doesn’t really like the idea of helping Creed of all people – he’d just as soon have bad things happen to them, after all – but … it’s not her place to decide something like that, and even so, he’s still a person, albeit a fairly …unpleasant one. And besides, maybe being saved by mutants will make him less cruel towards them…or something?
[Crossing into "The Sound and the Fury"]
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