Issue 1 Downtime

The people of mutant town were in an uproar. At the moment it was unclear what enraged them more, that someone had been developing a drug to "cure" them, or that they'd been breeding a disease to kill them. Either way, they were outraged. The protests had started at the Kryster building, but had slowly but surely been pushed back toward mutant town.

However, as the protests drew back toward mutant town, an opposing side formed on the other side of the police, this composed of humans shouting back at the protesting mutants. Once the line reached Mutant Town, though, the mutants refused to retreat any further. The police found themselves stuck between a mob of angry mutants and a mob of angry human bigots, and the question seemed to be which side would turn it into a riot.

"This does not look good." Rachel said as she looked at the scene, already reaching out towards the crowd.

"This level of anger never does," John commented, on hand act as a shield.

"I'll see what I can do." Rachel said, as she began to, slowly and subtly calm the crowd, going after not their thoughts or emotions, but rather the physical and chemical symptoms of stress and anger.

Rachel managed to touch the first few people, and even a few more, but there were just so many of them. Even as people calmed down and moved back, fresh pissed off people moved up and started trying to make themselves heard.

The humans and mutants continued shouting at each other, and then Rachel would manage to feel something... strange. One of the humans, a very, very angry one, was holding a rock. In a moment, he considered throwing it, and almost did, but at the last second thought better of throwing the first rock. Unfortunately, another mutant psychic detected the same thing Rachel did, and before the man had decided not to throw it, he'd already thrown his own stone.

Even as everyone started hostilities, there was a feel of pure chaos in the air.

"Fuck" Rachel swore as things went from bad to worse. Shifting tactics, she tried to find the people who were being the most violent and set about sending them to sleep.

"Bloody peasants," Tommy muttered, concentrating and raising the ground to erect giant earth walls, trying to keep the two groups separated.

This was met with mixed results. The police looked gratefully at the X-Men for a moment, before the reaction from the crowds became apparent.

"We've got the X-Men with us!" One mutant rabble-rouser shouted. "Those sodding flatscans can't stop us now!" The fact that some people on their side didn't seem to register with them... all they saw were humans dropping asleep, and a wall being erected to keep the humans back. While the mutants from mutant town weren't exactly X-Men quality, there were still some blasters among them, who all started taking shots at the humans, who all started rushing to get over the partly-completed wall before they were all sitting ducks.

This was, pretty much, when things went to hell.

"Damn it!" Rachel swore again, trying to knock out as many of the blasters as she could, unable to shake the feeling that she was bailing against the tide.

"Damnation!" Tommy said, reaching for a pistol at his belt before having a better idea.

One of the fire hydrants would bust open, and water would start shooting out at BOTH rushing groups of protesters.

This move actually seemed to have a good effect. The humans, not exactly keen on getting soaked in late february away from their homes, started pulling back, and some actually took off running. Some mutants, too, started backing away, especially the ones being woken up by icy water. However, they were close to home, and some of them were very well equipped to handle treatment like this. So as the humans ran, the mutants tried to press that advantage, throwing them into direct opposition by the police.

Rachel, meanwhile, was working frantically, trying to stop the attacking mutants.

Rachel would find that the humans were easier to turn back... but the mutants were the ones who really needed to be turned back. She'd find that, one by one, she could calm the frantic rage in the air, until she finally got to one mind that wasn't enraged, wasn't chaotic... it was absolutely calm and amused and intentionally spurring everyone on. It was also the mind of a telepath that was much more skilled than you'd normally find in Mutant Town, away from the skilled trainers that the school and X-Corp staffed.

At least I'm not loosing my touch Rachel thought With a wry smile as she started to look for a hole in the telepath's defenses "Tommy," she said absently "See that brown haired guy by the big oak tree? We need to take him out now."

"Oh, come on, now, no you don't," came an amused thought, and the rush of mutants pressed during Rachel's distraction, pushing forward only to start getting slammed down by the police.

"Yes I do." Rachel replied, a hint of triumph in her mindvoice as she found a weak place in his shields and jammed her mandible in through the gap, ripping a hole in the shields and then going straight for his breathing.

"Oh, come on now," came the reply as his avatar, a great sword-wielding berserker, counterattacked, striking right along the offending mandible beneath a gap in the spider's chitinous hide to stab right into her composure, twisting panic into her even as physically, he fell to his knees, clutching his throat. "I just got a little carried away watching the fun. Do I really look like I'm doing much, here?" Indeed, even with his attention fully on Rachel, there didn't seem to be any change in the action.

Unfortunately for the berserker, being attacked and thrown into a panic only served to make Rachel hit harder, as she fought to bring down the man who was hurting her.

And, in true berserker style, the opposing telepath let loose with a torrent of chaotic psychic static, represented by an astral club to the astral head.

"Certainly I do," Tommy said, pulling out his pistol, and taking aim...

"Blast! Too many people in the way."

The golden spider ducked away from the club, and sent webbing to encase the arm "Use your mutation, dumbass." she said, her tone surprisingly absent given what she was saying.

The telepath, though, seemed effectively bound up in Rachel's power, struggling to break his power loose. "Oh, for god's sake, are you going to stop the riot or just pound on me until someone else gets killed," he growled.

Meanwhile, the police and the mutants seemed to be getting into it in full force. The police were knocking down anyone who was attacking them, while many mutants were backing off, looking for things to throw or firing back with their powers.

"And do WHAT, precisely? Make his shoes damp?" Tommy shot back.

If you weren't feeding it, I could stop the riot. Rachel hissed, as she tried to go after his breathing again.

John stuck close to Rachel, ready to act if anyone decided to use her averted attention to their advantage.

"Oh for... if it'll get you to stop being a bunch of misguided bullies, here!" the telepath snapped. There was a surge of panic from the mutants, who were already on edge, and the mouthiest of them started turning tails from the big, scary police. The littler dogs, so to speak, were easier for the police to mop up, or else turned tail and ran after the leaders as well.

Asshole Rachel swore, holding the telepath in place so that they could capture him.

Tommy charged through the fleeing masses to the telepath, his pistol drawn. "Alright, no funny moves," he said, snootily.

"No moving at all," the telepath said, rolling his eyes, before giving Tommy a good psychic punch to the ego.

Which was followed up by a good physical slap to the face.

The man's head snapped to the side with the slap, then turned back to give Tommy a cocky smirk. "God damn, do all nobles hit like girls?"

"Just one bullet, Nomic. We'll say he was trying to run."

"Mmmm... A little cold-blooded for an X-Man," the man chuckled. "You must be one of the washouts that gets pulled up for emergencies."

"No, we're not going to kill him." Rachel said as she telepathically knocked him on his ass "By the way this is how girls hit. Who are you and what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Into the foot would be fine."

The man actually fell back from the psychic hit, rubbing his head and muttering 'good hit.' "My name's Santiago, and I was protesting. Then I was rioting. THen I was getting my ass handed to me, and now I'm sitting here while Mr. Metro over there postures and you knock me around."

"Where'd you go to school?" Rachel asked "You've got better training that the usual Mutant Town crowd. And if you get smart and say Beaux Batons I will kick your ass."

He scoffed. "Mutant Town. Please. Do I sound British? I went to New Wundagore."

"And why are you here?" Rachel said "This isn't tourist season."

"No, this is mass-mutant-murder season, according to the news," the man smirked. "We all need to be sticking together when things start going down. I'm just here to see how our brothers and sisters at Ground Zero are reacting."