Players:
Summary: A mob of anti-mutant activists riot around the Embassy in response to Envy’s recent activity.
Log Title: Civil Unrest
Rating: G
NYC - Mutant Town (Avenue A)
Mutant Town, also known as District X, has become a haven for mutants. This section of town doesn't care what you look like, accepting all mutants no matter what their appearance. Most of the businesses in this section of town are mutant run ranging from small convenience stores to clothing shops to restaurants to night clubs. The buildings here aren't the high rise buildings you might find in mid-town but most are about 5-6 stories high. Mutant Town might not be the most luxurious section of town, in fact it's fairly run down, but this section of where mutants are safe and welcomed regardless of race, religion and culture.
Mutant Town has been a little hectic all day. Police in the area are on heightened alert after Envy's threat to kill the children if violence breaks out against mutants. This threat has not stopped a bunch of anti-mutant protestors from showing up at the Embassy, holding signs and chanting for Envy to be turned over to the police. The crowd around the doors of the embassy isn't terribly large, but it is getting a bit of attention from some unfriendly mutants. The police look a bit panicked as they try to keep the peace.
A news van pulls up to the street across from the Embassy and a reporter and camera man step out to begin filming the scene. She walks straight past the police and attempts to enter the building, but the Embassy guards keep her at bay. "I demand that Magneto make a statement on what he is planning to do to top his "citizen" Envy from killing the children of New York City!" The crowd is a little more ralled up by this.
Taylor, who is presently not wearing an image inducer, due to it being mutant town and wanting to be at least a little bit open about their own appearance in places like that. The felinoid student is presently walking with Nicholas down the streets of the subsection of the city, pointing out the many sights and places that the feline likes to go, "… and just over there, that's where I get my pants. I know that's totally boring, but they actually make stuff for us tailed people, which is pretty good. This part of town is actually kind of incl-" And then Taylor sees all of the protestors at the Embassy, as they get a bit too close to it to make it hard to ignore, "Oh. Oh, shit."
Cale is walking along with Taylor and Nick, seeming happy just to be out and doing stuff. He too remembers that store! Tis a special store. As they approach the embassy, however, Cale, like Taylor, seems to get a bit of a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Tay, I don't think we should be here…" he says in a small voice, as the ocelot seems to be the leader of the little group.
Nicholas has been walking around the city looking at everything with a wide-eyed fascination. It's obvious he's quite intimated as he doesn't leave Taylor or Cale's side the entire time. "Really, don't let me get lost." There's a nervous tone as he knows if he looses sight of one of them, he's doomed. "So…this is mutant town it's so…." Run down? Crappy? "I thought everyone in New York was rich." The common misconception. When he sees the news vans, police and protesters he freezes. "I…I don't want to be here." He mutters, feeling his heart start to race a bit.
A woman comes out of the Embassy. She looks quite nervous and is dressed like a secretary. "Um…I'm sorry but Mr….Um Magneto is unavailable for comment right now."
"Is that so? What is Magneto doing that he is too busy to deal with this situation!? Is he HELPING that monster?" A microphone is pushed into the secretary's face.
The secretary puts up her hands defensively and backs up toward the door. She suddenly reaches up to her ear and presses on what looks like a Bluetooth. "What? NO! That is just…THE worst idea…Seriously? …No…Well tell him to wait…I'm not going to be out here when he comes out that's why!" She looks up at the reporter, who looks slightly confused. "Um…The Embassy is sending out a…Delegate? Representative? Someone's coming out to talk to you." She turns and darts into the Embassy as a man steps out and up to the reporter.
The man is wearing a brown and black outfit with a duster overtop. He has a pair of goggles pushed up on top of his head and a generally unhappy expression on his face. Dingo raises his hands to show that he is not there to attack anyone. "Now look. Magneto is unavailable to make a comment at this time. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have, but you're going to have to NOT accuse us of harboring Envy. She is not here. We have people looking for her. This situation is bad for humans and mutants alike." The crowd just seems kind of dumbfounded.
"Don't worry, Nick, if you get lost, I can find you. I'll be able to sniff you out, I'm pretty familiar with your scent by now…" mumbles Taylor, glancing towards the scene that's unfolding and nodding at the other two, deciding to turn around. "I think… I think yeah, let's get out of here. Go see some of the other sights in the city, I'll just turn on my image thingy…"
"Hey, it's that… Bruce guy," Cale pauses, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun while he gets a better look at Dingo. "Yeah, that's definitely him. Hm." He does seem rather, well, curious at the scene before them. "That's some delegate to send out…" he murmurs, recalling Dingo's positions on various things that they'd talked about. "That guy's kind of a racist."
Nicholas just stares at what's going on, fear definitely in his eyes as he can't seem to look away from Anti-Mutant protesters. "I…I want to go home." He says in a voice that's a bit firmer in tone than one might think from the look on his face. "Taylor…does stuff like that happen often…here?"
The crowd suddenly starts yelling again. "Dingo!? DINGO!? He's just as bad as Envy!" Someone else in the audience, "I bet he's working with her!" And someone else, "Kill them all! Kill all the mutants!" The police look incredibly concerned now, trying to keep the crowd back from the embassy as best they can.
Dingo grabs the camera woman's microphone as she tries to back away. "No you don't, missy. See that?" He points to the crowd. "They WANT Eris to kill those kids. They'll start a fight here just so that she'll have an excuse. Then THEY'LL have an excuse to come in here with guns. They're the enemies here, not the Embassy."
"Oh my god! He's attacking that reporter! That bastard!" The crowd rushes toward the Embassy apparently to attack Dingo. A few in the back decide to turn out the other way and attack random passerby. But who here is a mutant and who isn't. "There! That giant dog!" "I think it's a tiger." "CLEARLY it's a cheetah." "Who cares? Kill it before it eats someone!" A small faction from the crowd come charging at Taylor.
"It's, no, I've never seen anything like this happen here. Most of the time it's nothing like this. We'll just… we'll just come back another time," says Taylor, putting a hand on Nick's shoulder. That's when the crowd seems to turn on Taylor and the teen retracts the hand and says, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! I'm not going to hurt anyone, I'm just here on a walk!" Tay glances towards Nick and Cale and says, taking a few steps back quick and mumbling, "Um, maybe you guys should get outta here, pretend not to know me and shit… Cale, get Nick home. I'll be able to run away…"
"What? I… O-okay," Cale stammers, glancing at the crowd nervously. Ironically his survival instinct kicks in and his skin starts to change color, matching the brick of the building they're standing in front of. "I don't know, I mean, maybe we should stick together," he says quickly, not comfortable with the idea of being separated in this huge crowd. He grasps Nick's hand nervously anyway, more out of instinct than the actual possibility that they'd get separated.
Both Cale and Taylor would be able to feel how badly Nick is shaking as he's trying to do everything to not lose it. He holds onto Cale's hand with an iron grip not fully realizing what he's doing. "Taylor…I'm not leaving you here. We're all running…together." He can't help but remember the Purifiers and how they tried to kill him just a few months ago. Spotting a dumpster near by, he uses his telekinesis to lift it in the air and throw, with little force, at those charging Taylor. "We have to get out of here."
Suddenly the crowd turns on Cale as well. "Hey! That chick is a mutant, too!" "Are you sure that's a girl?" "Who cares! Soon it'll be dead!" They begin picking up rocks and bits of garbage to throw at the teens, shouting various hateful things as they advance.
Back by the Embassy there is a collective scream as Dingo decides it is time to take action. Some very strategically placed sand gardens around the doors of the Embassy empty out as Dingo collects them into a sand construct roughly the size of a van. He stands on top of the sand dog and calls out to the police. "Hey! Get these people under control. I don't want to fight with any of you, but I won't stand by and watch them attack my people."
The dumpster tossed by Nick knocks back a couple of people, actually causing one of the protestors to go unconscious. The others are even less happy now. "Oh my god they're attacking! Fight for your lives!" A few of them grab various things out of the dumpster as they come after the teens: a pipe, a plank of broken wood, an old cricket bat. over near the park a few protestors are kicking a girl who is trying to curl up on the ground.
Taylor raises their hands to defend themselves, "Shit, shit… They're attacking some girl, I can't just let her get beat up…" Taylor grimaces and then looks towards Nick and Cale before shouting, "We haven't done anything, we're just walking, he's just protecting a friend!" The feline student looks towards Nick and Cale and says, "You guys have to get outta here, I know it's stupid but I need to help the girl…" With that, Taylor gets down onto all fours to rush towards the girl at a surprisingly fast run.
"TAY!" Cale shouts, moving to rush after the feline but getting jerked back like a dog on a leash as he forgets he was hanging onto Nick. That's probably a good thing, though, as it refocuses his attention on the people rushing at them. Whatever instincts seemed to kick in when he helped Mason fight Envy are not kicking in right now; this is more like when he was bullied at school, and he never DID quite figure out how to handle that. Fight or flight? Cale chooses… flight. "Nick, hang on, okay?" Looking up above them at an apartment balcony, he ponders for a second, and then his tongue shoots out, wrapping around the railing, and suddenly yanks both him and Nick, who is held on tightly by a sticky adhesive now, up to the balcony; once he's on it, he lets go and uses his tongue to haul Nick the rest of the way up after he scrambles over. They should be safe up here, right? … right? He pants heavily for a second. "Bleh! Yuck! Yuck metal!" he shakes his head, spitting and wiping slobber off his mouth with the back of his sleeve, still grasping Nick's hand, though the adhesive should wear off quickly.
"Taylor! TAYLOR!" Nicholas calls after his feline friend as they run off. "TAY!" He keeps on calling until he's pulled up to one of the balconies and it takes him a bit to figure out what happened. "We have to help Taylor!" Nicholas says as he panics. "They're going to kill her Cale!" He says convinced of it. "That's what they do, they kill people like us! We need to help her!"
"Damnit! The Tiger! Someone get the Tiger!" One particularly large protestor steps directly in front of the charging feline and raises a pipe high, swinging it down at the mutant's face. The people attacking the girl by the park are now attacking a young man who attempted to rescue her. The two are hopelessly outnumbered.
There is a sudden gunshot and the crowd ducks instinctively for a moment. A quick glance around reveals that it is one of the protestors who is shooting. The crowd redoubles their efforts, those that were after Cale and Nick now turning toward Taylor and a middle aged man who just walked out of a building. The gun is fired again, this time the bullet strikes the edge of the platform Cale and Nick are standing on. It appears that man has not given up on those two mutants quite yet.
Over by the Embassy the giant sand dog is knocking protestors down effortlessly. A riot van which was apparently parked a few blocks off is coming in from the South. Dingo glances over at it for a moment before his attention is drawn by the sound of the gunshot. Dingo suddenly vanishes inside of his construct as it turns and charges toward the man with the gun, knocking people out of the way as he moves.
Taylor's ears fold back and the ocelot student growls at the large protestor who blocks their way. One of Tay's hands is raised to catch the pipe with impressive speed and strength and the feline responds by attempting to kick the man so he moves back and lets go of the pipe. If successful, the feline moves on and dashes towards the young man and the girl who are being attacked, to try and even the odds a little bit.
"Fuck!" Cale winces and ducks, "They're totally insane! This is crazy!" the boy shouts, twitching back and forth. He's totally not sure what to do. "I. Nick! What do we do? What do we do?" Amy would know what to do! Using his tongue like a grappling hook again, he swings over to another balcony, sticking to the bottom of it. "Okay, okay," he breathes heavily, "I… I'm going back down to help Tay! Get cover or something!" Okay, this is turning out /horrible./ But how does he get across the street without getting murdered? Quickly, he drops himself down to the ground, sucking his tongue back in and landing with a soft 'thud' that kind of hurts his feet a little; but after that he bolts across the street towards Taylor, using his tongue again on a nearby lamp post to hoist himself up in the air over the oncoming crowd; hopefully sticking a landing where the two injured people are.
"Cale…we have to find somewhere safer and get Taylor. Let the school know. I…I don't know!" Nicholas stammers in a panicked voice, breathing hard and tears starting to form. Then the bullet hits the metal of the balcony and ricochets off hitting Nick in the calf. "FUCK!" He yells, grabbing his leg and the shooter below can be heard yelling "Ha! Shot one! Shooting that mutie is like shooting fish in a barrel!" He takes aim to fire again but upon hearing that someone was injured a young woman appears behind Nick, grabs him and the two vanish before the second shot is fired.
Inside the Embassy Nicholas is teleported into one of the rooms to safety which is when the panic attack starts and between trying to yell for Taylor and Cale, crying out of fear and gasping for breath his wound is being tending to as the fight continues outside.
Taylor's adversary is indeed kicked back. The man is knocked into a few other protestors and finds himself minus a pipe. The growl ushered from the feline mutant apparently causes him to think again about approaching this particular target again. He turns and goes after…He changes his mind about attacking anyone as a massive sand dingo bounds over his head.
Dingo's construct leaps into the air as it prepares to crush the man with the gun. Unfortunately, the man with the gun is a good three yards to the dingo's left. The construct comes down hard on the dumpster Nick tossed earlier, flattening the receptacle like it was made of cardboard. Dingo appears on top of the construct again and glances around. "Ah damn. Missed him." He did not miss the dozen people he ran down on his way over here though. The construct wheels around and takes aim at the man with the gun again.
Taylor and Cale find themselves next to the two people being attacked by the park. There are about ten protestors here, all attacking the two who are laying on the ground. And then there is someone else. The secretary from earlier. She grabs the girl's wrist and the two are gone, just like Nick. And then she's back again. She reaches for the boy but is struck with a bat before she can get him to safety. The strike apparently knocks the woman unconscious, as she slumps to the ground almost immediately.
Police can be heard shouting into megaphones back at the Embassy stair. The riot truck has arrived and they are now using tear gas to try and control the crowd. With the current wind direction, the gas is moving away from where most of the action is taking place. The officers are slowly arresting people in the area, but it will be a while before they're able to help on this end.
Taylor frowns when the woman goes down and the feline student glances towards Cale, "I told you to go… Where's Nick? Is he okay? Man, he's never gonna come out to the city again after this…" The ocelot student, while speaking, moves in quickly to try and pull the bat away from the person who is swinging it, growling, "Nobody is trying to harm you here, you're the ones who are attacking /us/! Don't be fucking /monsters/, you gibbering assholes!"
Cale appears to be rather terrified, perhaps re-thinking the bravery he had while he was up on the balcony. Taylor seems /more/ than able to handle themselves. "Y-you're really strong!" he squeaks, wide-eyed as he backs up against Tay slightly. At least he can watch their back, though! He does grab the secretary and fallen boy, dragging them in a little bit from the crowd so they can be better protected; having little first aid knowledge, though, he has no idea if they're okay or not.
That middle aged man that was being attacked by the crowd somehow manages to make his way back inside of his building. Luckily the door is too strong for the crowd to be able to get inside.
Taylor manages to disarm a second person and send him running as well, yelling something about "Please don't hurt me Mr. Kitty!" Apparently he thinks Taylor looks male.
The giant construct misses the gun wielder again, this time crushing a small car and knocking back several other protestors. The crowd is starting to back away from the man with the gun, seeing now that those in the general area are likely to be trampled by Dingo in sand form.
The protestors begin throwing objects through business windows and destroying property. A lovely woman with long black hair wearing a black evening gown steps out from one of the windows as it is broke. She looks so out of place that those around her pause for a moment before attempting to attack her. She simply walks toward Dingo at a leisurely pace, confusing the rioters as they attempt to stop her. It appears that this woman is not solid. Attacks go right through her. "Seriously Dingo? You did this. You think they would have rioted if you hadn't shown up?"
The two that Cale pulls away are breathing and seem to be generally ok. The young man is conscious and actually seems a little more concerned for the secretary's safety. "Thanks. Is that Ding-LOOK OUT!" He points behind Cale as the man with the gun turns to aim at him. Apparently he has decided that shooting a sand monster or a woman that can't be touched is not worth his time.
Taylor grimaces and then, ears flicking up when Cale is told to look out, Taylor leaps out and tries to assault the man with the gun. The feline student tries to get in the way of the shot if it misfires as the felinoid swipes up at the gun with their claws, and then another swipe is taken at the man's face, a feral roar sounding from the feline's throat. A shot is taken, it tears a hole through the felinoid's shoulder, but it seems Taylor is running on adrenaline anyhow.
Cale goes wide-eyed, "TAY! TAY!" he shouts, whirling around with that tongue of his already kind of hanging out; several feet of it, anyway. It snakes around the furry one, attempting to wrap around the man's weapon several times before yanking forcefully; if successful, Cale sends the gun flying off into the park, as far as he can throw it. He's not a big fan of those things. At all.
The man who had the gun is now a bloody mess. He falls to his knees, his gun now taken from him, and looks up at the ocelot he just shot. "Um…I…I.." He turns and tries to crawl away from the scene.
The police back at the Embassy are getting closer to calming down the crowd now. There are small pockets of resistance still, but most of the people in that direction are detained.
Bruce pops out of his construct again and glances around the area. Not too many more on this side either. Then he notices the woman, "Smokey! Hey! Want to do me a favor and go help out those cops? Hmmm?" His construct switches slightly, the tail extending and splitting into several sand tendrils which restrain nearby rioters. "I'm sure they'd appreciate it."
The woman shakes her head. "I hate when you call me that." A swipe from a cricket bat leaves an odd trail as it moves through her, revealing that the woman is apparently made of smoke. She gives the man who attacked her an annoyed look before he is swiped up by one of Dingo's tendrils. "Fine…What else am I going to do?" She seems to dissipate and vanish, but a few minutes later she's suddenly over by the police. The tear gas they put out earlier suddenly changes direction, seeming to move to where the pockets of resistance are the worst.
Taylor looks down at the man and growls, putting their free arm up to their shoulder to check for bleeding, "I just wanted to leave, but people were hurting innocent people and my friends! We aren't the ones who are /fucking monsters/." The teen grimaces and then looks about, "Cale, are you okay? And… and where's Nick? Dammit, I hope he's okay…" Given that Taylor is where the pockets of resistance are the worst, though, the teen goes down coughing at the tear gas.
"TAYLOR!" cries Cale as he sees the ocelot get shot, but then Tay seems to just turn around and start talking to him as if it's no problem, "I'm… I'm fine. But. Tay. You… you got shot…" he glances up at at the balcony, "I think Nick's fine… I saw… something…" Out of the corner of his eye, not that he caught the whole thing. As the tear gas rolls through, Cale yanks his shirt off, wrapping it around Tay's nose and mouth cautiously. "Just stay still, try not to breath too much," he coughs, tears streaming down his face as his eyes sting. Being familiar with Tay's powers, though, he knows she's got it worse.
The police are making quick progress now, the gas working to quiet down the crowd fairly well. Dingo squeezes those in his grasp until they pass out, dropping them in a neat line on the street. He jumps down from the top of his construct and walks toward Taylor. "Damn it, Smokey!"
A sing-songy voice chimes up out of no where, "Not my name."
"I don't care! You're getting the mutants, too."
"You didn't specify…But fine." A sphere of clean air opens up suddenly around Taylor and Cale. The woman in the black dress is now standing next to both of them. As in, there are tow of her, one next to each teen. A quick glance over to the police shows that she is also standing over there, and there another one over by Dingo.
Dingo smiles, "Thanks, puddin'. I'd better get out of here before the police make it down this way. Don't want to have to deal with all that…" He wanders over toward the two teens. "You guys alright? Sorry that got kind of out of hand. I think these protestors just wanted to give Envy a reason to kill those kids. If the kids die, they get closer to their little war."
A few feet away from Cale and Taylor, the secretary wakes up. "Damn it. Stupid humans with their wooden sticks…" She glances over at Taylor and then at the approaching police. "Hey. You two get to the embassy once things clear up a bit. We'll treat that wound and you'll get out of having to make a police statement. Also that boy you put on the balcony is in there. He got shot, too." Before she can explain further, she and the young man are both gone. Probably teleported into the Embassy by now.
Taylor is still coughing for a few moments after the smoke begins to dissipate, and the felinoid looks towards Cale and says, "Can… can you help me into the embassy, if they can help me? I… I think it's starting to hurt now, if Nick is inside, we have to get to him… he's probably so scared… Goddammit, I just… I'm sorry."
"I… wha…" Cale murmurs, somehow unscathed throughout this whole conflict. Which seems par for the course for him; his friends get shot but he's /fine,/ much to his chargrin. "Yeah, we're okay, I think… I… I dunno. I can't believe this would happen, I just, it's impossible," he whimpers, tears streaming down his face still. "Tay…" he reaches down, hugging the feline and helping them get to their feet. "It's gonna be okay… We're gonna be okay." Seems more for self assurance than for Taylor. "Can you… give me that?" he murmurs, reaching for his shirt that was being used as a bandana and trying to retie it (somewhat unsuccessfully) around Tay's wound. After that, he shuffles towards the embassy, kitty in tow.
Dingo glances back at the police, they're pretty close now. Dingo and the construct dissipate and travel as a small sandstorm back to the doors of the Embassy. Most of the sand falls back into place in the gardens around the building, a small amount moves upward toward the roof.
The police collect up the rest of the rioters and place them in vans. They will be transported elsewhere and dealt with later on. A few officers try to stop Cale and Taylor, asking them to come with them. The woman in a Black dress is there in an instant. "As mutants these two are considered by Magneto to be citizens of Genosha. As such, they are to be given sanctuary within the Embassy so that their wounds can be treated and they can be protected from the people you failed to protect them from." She continues to speak to the officers after the teens walk out of earshot, it seems to keep them at bay.
The Embassy will be quite busy for several hours. Everyone with injuries will be treated in their medical facility. The staff of the Embassy will require the students from Xavier's to stay for several hours until things calm down outside, after which time they will be released into the custody of a professor from that school.
"Genosha? What is that even? I… I guess we need to go see Nick though…" Yes, Cale's not exactly /well versed/ in the matter of mutants or world events. He's a nerd, not necessarily a perfect scholar though. He follows everyone else into the embassy; he DEFINITELY wants to get Taylor treated and well, he doesn't /exactly/ trust the normal hospital very much right now for other reasons.
"Genosha is like a mutant country or something," mumbles Taylor, staring down at the ground where the feline's blood is dripping off to, "Think they'll give me a shot of morphine? … doesn't matter, do you mind if I sleep, Cale?" It's probably a silly question, given that Tay is walking with Cale, but once they make it into the embassy, the feline mutant ignores Cale's opinion on the matter and falls unconscious.
