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The situation in Albuquerque is quickly spilling into chaos.
Four mutants have died this year at the hands of police officers. Groups of mutants and mutant sympathizers have grown tired of the same rhetoric coming from City Hall: it's just a coincidence and police were doing everything in their power to maintain the peace. Dig a little under the surface and the prevailing thought among the bigots is that the mutants had it coming.
Most recently a man by the name of Lou Davis was shot by a police officer after a routine traffic stop. Oddly, the police have chosen not to release the report to the public and have been evasive in their answers. Reflexively, the mutant community and mutant sympathizers have begun to protest all over the city.
A continued effort by the city has led to the demonstrations to be bigger and bigger. Tonight, the protesters have surrounded City Hall and what was once a peaceful movement teeters on the edge. City officials including the mayor and the chief of police are surrounded, stuck inside, and unable to leave to safety.
The riot starts when the first molotov cocktail is thrown into a shop window. It doesn't take long for the Governor to call the National Guard. They should be here within the hour.
And as the pair of X-men look down the lonely drag to where this is all happening, Remy LeBeau puts his cigarette out with the heel of his boot. "Sometin tellin' me it gun be a long night."
When the violence starts, Josh just has to sigh softly: he shakes his head from beneath his bright yellow hoodie. Oddly, it being bright yellow actually helps him blend in. If someone glances, as long as no light is shining on his skin they might just see the blinding yellow and not notice the gold. The gloves help, too. "It was bound to happen." he says, tone grave and resigned, "Well, at least we're not on the side egging them on and trying to *cause* a riot." He winces.
Remy curses to himself wishing there were others here. Two men, as talented as they both are, are not ones to fight a riot. Especially a riot of their compatriots. Especially given the histories of these two. This is, perhaps, the worst situation Remy LeBeau has been in since his future fiance put her fist through his ex-wife's head. So, he pulls out another cigarette. "Y'got any idea how we gun get dis crowd dispersed? If de National Guard get 'ere and start shootin, we gun got a plain ole massacre on our hands."
Josh hesitates, and he winces visibly. "Against a mob, I'm completely useless." He shakes his head, "I have to touch and while I might be able to cause some effect— a flight response maybe— by the time I got enough going someone would notice and start punching me in the face." He gestures at the edge, "What if you throw a card at the very edge? Have it explode, and people will start moving the other direction. Keep doing that and herd them? Will that work?"
Remy goes wide eyed and turns to Josh, "Dat a great fuckin' idea, Goldy. If we could get into one of dem dere buildins ah could fling cards of de top of the roof. Have em splode above de people's heads and dey'd all run away. Nobbody get hurt." He looks to the building. The tallest one is City Hall. You know, the one where the cops and city officials are all barricaded inside of.
Flashing a golden grin, Josh nods his head and looks to the City Hall building thoughtfully. "Hey, I gotta contribute something: if its ideas, so be it. Come on. There's got to be a side door: you blow the lock and if anyone comes to investigate, I'll put them to sleep and wipe their short term memory. If we hurry we can get up top in a couple minutes before it gets too out of hand." He looks warily at the crowd, but he's already in motion.
Remy seems to have a bit more verve now that there's a plan. Is it a good one? He tends to think so. They get to the side door, which is back an alleyway that is cut away a bit into both sides of the larger building, meaning they have some shielding from the people around them. The Cajun leans down in front of the door and touches the lock. "You tink dere people on d'otha side of dis door?" he asks worriedly.
"Don't worry." Josh reassures Remy, "If someone gets hurt, I'll heal them after I put them to sleep." He tugs his gloves off and slips both hands and gloves intoh is pockets, moving to the side, "I'll go in first: I should be able to lay hands on anyone before they have time to react much, and if not, well, its not so big a deal for me to get shot if I get shot. Getting shot in the head the other day has completely removed my fear of bullets." But he nods his head firmly, "This is one mission, Remy, where as far as I'm concerned, there will be zero casualties."
Remy nods a few times, "Yeah, aiight." Reassured, his fingers go to the lock which begins to turn a faint purple. Before long there's a soft poof and the lock shoots back inside. At his beckoning the door opens backwards with a creak. They've arrived in the booking center for the jail at the bottom of the building. It means they're going to have to go through the jail, but it also means that people have evacuated this part, probably to get a better look out the windows.
Moving quickly in, Josh lifts his hands, prepared to run at and touch someone— but it seems he isn't needed at this point, so he gives a nod and relaxes. "Okay, we need an elevator or stairs." Pause, "Preferrably stairs. People are less likely to use stairs." And with that, he heads off through the jail proper, in search of just that. Stairs.
"Agreed." Remy unfolds his metal bo-staff just in case. Considering both of the men are visible mutants, he figures having his weapon out isn't a big deal. There's a cell door in front of them, but Remy makes quick work of that. From there, they are walking through the hallway in between the cells of those in jail waiting for booking.
"Don't mind us, just passing through." Josh tries to be all nonchalant, because he totally belongs here, not. Ahem. He tries to keep on the 'feel-out' for any lifesigns that might be coming towards them, but otherwise he's in search of said stairs.
"Wait up," Remy says as he gives an upwards nod to one of the cells. "Dis guy. Ellis Garcia." The Cajun is reading the chart hanging on the outside. "He one of us. One of de guys dat got beat up by de cops." There are gears turning in Le Diable Blanc's mind, and it's probably clear to Josh what he's thinking.
Josh hesitates only a moment before he nods, looking to the prisoner, sighing softly, "Open his cell." he agrees with the unspoken thought, but he looks straight to Ellis, "Do you have somewhere you can go? Hide out? We need you to not retaliate and if you escape you'll be on the run. We can maybe help you resettle, but if all you're going to do is go out and try to escalate the situation outside… then we might need to leave you there, much as we might hate it. This has to stop, man. This has to stop or our people are gonna start dying."
"Yeah," Ellis says with a nod. "Got some folks up in Santa Fe I can stay with. Sure as hell don't want to stay here." Remy gets a grin on his face and puts his hand upon the lock. A moment later, Garcia is sneaking out the back door. Meanwhile, the X-pair are at the back steps. "One way to go," Remy says as he begins to leap upwards far more agile than one might expect.
With a quick nod to Ellis, Josh is off after Gambit. Josh is in no way supernatural in speed, dexterity, stamina, any of that: however with complete control over his body he manages a nearly ideal physicality without really having to do that annoying thing mortals call 'exercise'. Yes, its entirely fair to hate him when one learns of that. So, he's spy as he starts taking stairs two at a time following along.
Remy stops abruptly as he looks at a sign denoting the floors. He points a finger to the smaller print. "Investigations and Records" says the sign. LeBeau looks over his shoulder at Josh, "We be stoppin here on de way down." But they have a mission to do and time is wasting. Up they go and as Josh thought, there's no one in the stairwell. Everyone is watching out the windows. Finally, they get to the roof.
And there happen to be 5 police officers watching from above, there on the roof ledge.
Records. Josh nods quietly, and continues rushing up the stairs— and he comes to a halt, one that isn't completely quiet but hopefully is covered by the shouting below. Without a word, but with a significant glance at Remy, Josh is moving forward, trying to sneak up behind them, reaching out his hands to quickly touch a pair: golden light radiates from his hands and he tries to seize control over their Awakeness and turn it into Comatose. That way falling doesn't wake them up again. If successful, it will likely last hours before the simulated medical coma wears off.
Gambit smacks down his staff upon the head of a third, knocking him out cold. But the surprise factor has worn off, and as the cops pull their guns, the heroes seem to understand they're really going to need to work quickly.
"Left!" calls out Elixir as a claim, simultaneously lunging at the one farthest right, Josh barrels forward without any sense of self-preservation. Dying that one time and being dead for a couple days really has done wonders for his confidence. Okay it hasn't done so much good with his memory, but he goes to coma the right while trusting Gambit to take on the other. And if he has to heal someone after, well, you gotta do what you gotta do.
Gambit listens to Josh's recommendation and takes his copper the best he can. He holds his staff with both hands and rips upward knocking the cops arms upward just as he pulls the trigger. There's immediate ringing in his ears, but he doesn't seem shot. He doesn't feel shot. That's good. The bad part is the upward thrust knocked the cop backward out and over the ledge, where he falls despite Remy's outstretched hand. "Non!" exclaims the man from New Orleans.
"Shit!" hisses Josh, even as the cop falls, and he winces, "Once we have the crowd… herded… I'll try to bring him back." He takes a deep breath, "If we can get to him— I can pull him back." But he glances over the ledge, to take in the sight, "But we have to get to the herding. Quickly, before someone investigates the falling copper."
Remy regains his composure and reaches into his pockets. Like a man making it rain at the strip club he begins to flick out 52 different light explosives into the sky that hurtle downward in a purple rain. One after one the explosions, though small, begin to ring out. Are they being bombed from above? Are they getting hit by shells? The mutants aren't sure, but there's definitely movement, and that movement seems like it's headed away from City Hall.
However, the people inside City Hall are also freaking out because they too think they're getting bombed from above. So panic is setting in and the building is beginning to clear out even as the mutants begin running down the streets. All the while, the lone police officer is lying upon the ground, dead, and in a bloody mass of goo.
Hesitating, Josh eyes the poor police officer, and then he shakes his head, "Gambit, meet me where we started. I'll go bring the cop back, man. No casualties." And with that he's turning and rushing back towards the stairs to reverse the path that brought them here.
"No casualties," Remy admits. He rushes downstairs, but as Josh pulls away from him, he stops at that floor from earlier. Investigations. And Records. He looks down as Josh continues his jaunt downstairs. Then, the Cajun looks at the door, opens it, and disappears.
Josh trusts Gambit to do whatever he needs in the records room: be it destroy things they don't want or get things they do. He's here for one reason only: to make sure no one dies. And so he runs at full tilt. He'll make for the goop that used to be a cop, and pour the full Elixir treatment into him, if he can get to him. He won't even be shy about it: if anything he'll do it wide open and visible. Let anyone left *see* a mutant bring the cop back to life, and see what that does for this story. Granted, he'll fight to stay upright after, and fall into a coma for a at least a day when they get back to the car, but. Someone has to do something about the toxicity of the local social fabric. Maybe Elixir is the cure for what ailes the town.
There's not just one person who sees what Elixir is doing; there are a couple. They stand around in awe as, slowly, the cop is brought back to life. Meanwhile, in the dark of the office, Remy is reading over the police file that the Chief will not release to the public. To his surprise, the police report was done and redone. Both were rejected. Both sets of documentation are extremely explicit and detailed. They are by the book reports chronicling what happened. To Remy's further surprise, it really does seem like the mutant attacked the cop.
Oddly, there's a note inside the file as well. It's a handwritten one that has the phone number for Gov. Reynolds. Remy goes back a few pages and re-inspects some of the documentation portions of the forms. They're marked denied and signed….by Governor Reynolds.
But why?
A few minutes later, Remy emerges next to Josh with a nod. "Bout time t'get outta here, buddeh."
As a last thing, Josh wipes that part of the brain that has short term memory: not only does he not need to remember they attacked them, but dying is just something no one needs to remember. Rising up, he leaves the cop alive but asleep, and stumbles towards Remy. A glance to those watching, "There shouldn't be fighting between us. We are you." And then he nods to Remy, "Let's go." he says in agreement.