20155/Times Square Meltdown

Times Square Meltdown
Date of Scene:	28 February 2025
Location:	Times Square
Synopsis:	An evening in Times Square turns to chaos as Madelyne is attacked in public by anti-mutant thugs. Violet and Wanda intervene, and though the thugs are left unconscious rather than dead, it isn't accomplished without cell phone footage.
Cast of Characters:	Madelyne Pryor, Violet Paige, Wanda Maximoff

---

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
The air is crisp, sharp with the lingering bite of February, but the streets are still alive.

Times Square never really empties, never quiets, never stops humming with its own erratic heartbeat. Neon billboards flicker, massive screens flashing advertisements too bright, too loud. Tourists cluster near street performers, laughing, chattering, snapping pictures. A man in a cheap Spider-Man suit dances for tips while a saxophonist plays something slow, sultry, out of place.

Madelyne moves through the crowd, hands in her coat pockets, heels clicking against the concrete, the sound swallowed up by the chaos. So many minds. So many fragments of thought, an unfiltered current of wants, worries, and distractions. She doesn't dig, but it's still there.

It's always there.

A woman on her left is hoping her boyfriend proposes tonight. Someone is debating where to eat. Someone else is thinking about running. Someone is watching her.

She keeps moving.

She's only here because she's escaped from the suffocating anger she feels at Xavier's. She should still be there, playing along, grateful for the refuge, pretending she belongs in that house of self-righteous bald men and wide-eyed children. But she doesn't belong, and they don't know what to do with her. They see Jean Grey when they look at her. They see what she isn't.

Out here, in the open, she's no one. Just another shadow in the lights.

And maybe she should have seen it coming, but she didn't.

Maybe if she hadn't been so absorbed in her own thoughts, she would have heard the violent thoughts before the man reached her -- felt his rage.

She didn't.

Pain explodes at the back of her head, sudden and blinding. Glass shatters. She barely registers the crunch beneath her before the pavement rushes up, her knees slamming into concrete, a sharp cry ripping from her throat. Her hands splay out, catching her weight, blood mixing with grime beneath her palms. Around her, the world stutters, the people closest by turning -- slow, uncertain, trying to process what just happened.

Three men.

One clutching the jagged neck of the broken bottle, shoulders tense, wired.

"I'm telling you it's her, god damnit!" The voice is hoarse, thick with something she recognizes too well. Hatred. Fear.

They think she's Jean. They must. With her long, flame red hair and pale skin, what other 'her' could she be mistaken for?

"Hold her down! We gotta get her out of here!"

The neon haze of Times Square reflects in the glass shards around her. People are watching. People are recording.

This is New York. People back up, but short of a full scale alien invasion, they don't scatter.

They don't help, either.

One of the men falls onto her, a knee digging into her back, driving her down into the concrete while another kneels with something metallic in his hands. A weapon? A restraint?

Violet Paige has posed:
Times Square. A tourist hotspot. The only thing making it even remotely tolerable is that everyone is so busy gawking at the sights they don't pay attention to one Violet Paige. Gotham socialite and party girl.

Who, having got fed up sitting in a private car that's stuck in the New York traffic, has bailed to take a 'short cut' across Times Square. Her destination? Broadway. There's a show opening and someone she vaguely knows is in it. Or paying for it. Maybe both. She stopped listening part way through the conversation. Sadly she also assured everyone she'd be there.

And she's technically a woman of her word.

Even if that word is usually accompanied with an obscene hand gesture.

When people start to cause a commotion she's one of the few who don't immediately go for their phones. Instead looking around cautiously, trying to work out what the hell is going on, is this some kind of undercover police thing? Is it a kidnapping?

Either way it doesn't exactly seem fair.

Her fists ball up instinctively. "Hey! Shitfuckers! Yeah you. Leave the lady alone."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
Why does a Witch find herself at a certain place, at a certain time? Fate? Destiny? Coincidence? Yet here is Wanda Maximoff on the streets of New York, currently on her way to the Avengers Tower, having chosen to take a walk instead of using her powers, watching how the chaos visible on the streets with all the flurry of people moving to and fro contrasts so heavily with the time she has been spending on Latveria as of late.

A good kind of chaos or a bad one? The redheaded Witch's contemplation of such thoughts is interrupted as she feels a disturbance in the air. That seventh sense to an unknown, as if there was something stirring in the air, about to boil. A moment of peace before unleashed chaos and destruction. Brows furrow as Wanda takes a corner to another street, drawn to where a group seems to be attacking someone. A face that she recognizes even if not the green eyes. Different from Jean's. The chaos there unmistakable.

And the realization that the source of the danger is coming from that woman, not the ones around her who seem to be overwhelming both in numbers and violence.

And so she approaches, eyes already flickering with a dark red light, magic starting to be conjured on one hand.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
Pressure drives her down. A knee slams into her back, grinding her into the concrete. Someone grabs at her wrists, twisting, forcing. Another pair of hands snatches at her hair, trying to yank her head back. They're going to drag her away.

No.

Not again.

Somewhere in the static of her own rage, she hears it -- a voice. Not theirs. A woman's, sharp and cutting through the crowd like a knife.

Hey! Shitfuckers! Yeah, you. Leave the lady alone!

It knocks them off balance -- not physically, but enough. Hesitation. A flicker of uncertainty.

It's all she needs.

The explosion comes from inside her, sharp and violent, a psychic detonation. The air bends, reality warping for a split second before it erupts outward. A shockwave of raw telekinetic force blasts from her prone form, tearing through the space around her. People go flying -- attackers, bystanders, bodies flung like rag dolls, crashing onto the pavement.

Screams. Glass shatters. Someone's camera phone hits the ground, spinning wildly. The neon billboards flicker overhead, an electric pulse trembling through the city itself.

And then comes the fire.

It's not real -- not in the way fire should be. It crawls from her shoulders, flickering in jagged, twisted ribbons of black and red, as if something once brilliant has been burned out and left hollow. The flames dance, fractured, erratic, before igniting fully in her hands.

Her breath comes sharp, fast. Her pulse is a war drum in her ears.

"I will NOT be taken!"

It rips from her throat like a battle cry, raw and guttural, echoing off the steel and glass of Times Square.

She rises, but not to her feet. Into the air.

She hovers, shoulders squared, flames twisting up her arms, emerald eyes burning with something deeper than rage.

It's not just them anymore. She sees the fear, hears it in the thoughts of the crowd as they stumble back, as they whisper, as cameras lift and shutters click.

They don't see her.

They see '_her_'. Jean.

Again. Always.

Her hands clench. The fire flares brighter. Her control teeters.

And somewhere, in the sea of faces, there's another presence. One that hums with something old, something familiar.

Can she feel it? Wanda's approach?

If she can, it doesn't stop her. She reaches a hand out towards the three men, that fire burning brighter as they begin to scream in agony, blood dripping from their noses and ears where they lie on the ground.

"Is _this_ what you wanted?!"

Violet Paige has posed:
Whatever Violet was expecting to happen after the unwise decision to involve herself in other peoples business. It was not /that/.

Seems like maybe the three guys mobbing the innocent woman in a public place may have had at least a slight reason to have been using excessive force. Because Madelyne seems to be horrifically dangerous.

The blast knocks the socialite backwards as readily as it knocks the people holding their cellphones up to film the event. No amount of money is protection against telekinetic force. Shocking I know. One minute she's preparing herself to punch someone in the face. The next? She's tangled in a pile of bystanders looking up at the sky.

Thankfully her cybernetic implants protect her from the worst of it. Protecting her vitals from the impacts.

She sits up, hand coming up to her face, wiping a little blood away from her face.

Her eyes narrow. Probably because without the sunglasses she habitually wears it's way too early in the day to be looking at... well anything really. It takes a moment for the injury to register. "Fuck."

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
That ~click~ that announces a shift in the air is felt more than seen and the magic that the Witch has been readying with her hands comes to bear just as that first blast of kinetic energy comes, toppling adversaries and innocent bystanders alike. Yet one woman still stands with the onslaught of power raging out, long red hair whipping out at the energies being unleashed.

Invisible shields spread to stop some of the bystanders from getting more seriously hurt. One that is stopped from getting ran over by a car, then one of those that had been attacking Madelyne stopped from hitting the concrete directly on his head.

She comes to a stop right next to Violet, "Indeed." she says of that eloquent 'Fuck' that the other woman speaks out, "The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Are you well?" she speaks in a low tone to Violet, her very noticeable eastern European accent visible. If that wasn't already obvious with her facial features and long red hair.

The burning intensity of the flames and the way Madelyne rages against a world that would like nothing more than to kill her is the kind of feeling Wanda knows well. She has been there, in that same position, ready to destroy those who would take her out because they did not understand who or what she was, "You do not need to do this." her own mind reaching to touch the other mutant's, delivering those words as if whispered through magic.

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
The world narrows.

The tourists, the gawking bystanders, the phones still recording -- they don't exist. Wanda stepping in, the red glow of her magic, the woman who bought Madelyne her opening and got thrown back for it -- none of it matters.

Only them.

The three men convulsing on the pavement, their bodies twitching, writhing, their minds tangled in the psychic hellscape she's trapping them inside. Fear. Pain. Their worst nightmares made real. Her power presses down, invisible but crushing, warping the air itself.

She watches them suffer.

She should feel shame.

She doesn't.

The edges of her mouth curl, just slightly. A flicker of something dark, something ugly. Satisfaction.

Then -- a voice.

It doesn't come from behind her. It doesn't come from anywhere. It comes from inside her mind. Soft but firm, sliding in like it belongs.

_You do not need to do this._

Her head snaps to the source, emerald eyes glowing like twin embers in the neon haze.

The men collapse, bodies going slack as if cut from their strings. They're still breathing, still alive -- but she could fix that in a second. One thought. One snap of her fingers.

Wanda Maximoff stands just beyond the carnage. Madelyne's chest rises and falls, her breathing hard, shallow. Power still coils around her, fire flickering at her fingertips. It flares hotter at the sight of Wanda, at the implication in her words, at the way she dares to tell Madelyne what she _needs_.

"They never _need_ to do what they do." The words rip from her throat, venom-laced. A snarl, a warning. Stay out of this.

"They _want_ to."

Her hand rises to the back of her head, fingers pressing into the wound, coming away streaked in fresh, red blood. It drips between her fingers, smearing against her palm.

Her jaw tightens.

Something flickers behind her -- a ghostly outline, a broken thing, wings that should have lifted but instead burned to ruin. Fire that should have been beautiful, divine, but was left to blacken and rot.

Madelyne turns back to the men.

Her hand raises again.

"I don't _need_ to do this," she says, and this time her voice is almost calm.

She lifts her chin, eyes locked onto their crumpled forms.

"I _want_ to."

Violet Paige has posed:
Her thumb rubs against the blood slick fingers. Yup. Definitely blood. Her blood.

It's only when Wanda starts talking to her that Violet seems to snap back into focus. Probably she should get up. Untangle herself from all the bystanders. Maybe even help anyone who is mobile to get up and get as far away from here as they can.

Plus it's probably not great for anyone else she's landed on. Given her secret cyborg nature makes her weigh a lot more than you'd expect a party girl to weigh.

Her outfit at least is punk chic. So looks pretty much fine. You can't tell the designer rumples and tears from the 'real' ones.

"The path to Hell?" she repeats with a frown. "Shit." That was a bad plan. Probably a scalp wound. "No I was going somewhere worse. The theatre."

At least it wasn't a Super-hero musical. She's rather try throw down with Maddie and Wanda at the same time than that...

"I need a drink."

It's not exactly an answer to 'Are you well' but if she's thinking about a stiff drink she's probably not fatally wounded.

Yet.

When she pulls herself to her feet she's surprisingly tall. Rolling her shoulders as if making sure she's not twisted or broken anything. "You two uh... know each other?"

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
When Violet reveals she was going to the theatre has Wanda immediately have a quip on the tip of her tongue, even with the tense situation at hand which just makes her grind her teeth. _Damn the Avengers and their quips._ So she refrains from making a comment about the Hawkeye musical, only smiling faintly, "You are fine." even if Violet most likely shouldn't be. Something under the skin that Wanda can't quite pinpoint. Yet it seems Violet has her curiosity now. Though as for the actual question?

"We do not. Yet."

Gaze then turning to fully focus on Madelyne. Her struggle but more importantly the *satisfaction* visible in the suffering of those men. But is that so different from Wanda's own look when she was reveling in her own power and the potentials of it? When she was destroying those that had subjugated her most her life? Yet that's not Wanda anymore.

"You won't do this." It's not a request anymore but a declaration of intent. A challenge even if her voice comes out in a calm, gentle manner. Serene amidst the chaos unleashing a bit everywhere. As if she was fully at home in this maelstrom of impending destruction. This is what Wanda has done all her life after all.

She steps forward at last. Or rather, she _glides_ to land in-between the crumpled-up men and their doom, "They will be punished. But slaying them where they stand will only hurt _our_ cause."

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
Madelyne's expression darkens, sharpens, her lips pressing into a hard line as Wanda steps between her and what's hers.

You won't do this.

The words land like a slap. Not a request. A demand.

A growl, low and simmering, coils at the base of her throat. Fire still flickers at her fingertips, twisting in uneven, jagged ribbons of black and red. She could attack Wanda. Or try. But even through the roaring in her head, she knows better. A frontal attack against the Scarlet Witch isn't just reckless -- it's suicidal.

Her fingers curl, nails digging into her palms. The fire doesn't go out.

"Don't stand in my way, witch." The words are cold, clipped.

And then -- a smirk. That knowing, placating calm. 'Our.' The suggestion that she and Wanda Maximoff belong to the same world, the same fight, the same cause.

Her laugh is sharp, bitter, completely devoid of humor.

"Our?" The word spits from her lips like venom, her voice curling around it with a disdain so thick it nearly chokes.

She floats a little higher, just enough to emphasize the space between them, her hair billowing in the wind of her own power.

"And what is 'our' cause, Avenger?"

There's something dangerous in the way she says it -- a sneer, a barb, a provocation. Her glowing eyes flick over Wanda, full of challenge, of doubt.

"Do you think you know me? Do you think you understand even an inch of what I am? What these men -- and dozens of others like them -- want to do to me?"

Her voice is raw now, something frayed at the edges.

Her hand lifts from her side, the fire still licking at her fingers. Not aimed at Wanda. Not aimed at anyone. Just burning.

"I'm sick of it. An example needs to be made."

There's a dangerous pause, then, as a wicked smile twists onto her lips. She turns in mid-air, rotating slightly to look at those spectators who remained without sense enough to flee, though never turning her back on Wanda. Phone are hoisted in the air from all angles. It isn't hard to find one to look at.

"And who better to make an example of this scum who would attack an innocent woman on the street than Jean Grey?"

The woman she's lived in the shadow of her entire life -- however long that's actually been. It's hard to know where the false memories stop and the real memories begin.

She lifts her hands as she asks, clearly putting herself up on a pedestal, like she expected everyone around to recognize the name and kneel or applaud. They wouldn't, of course.

But the cameras would remember. The internet will remember.

And with that introduction, they won't have a hard time identifying the woman responsible -- the woman who has single-handedly been responsible for every tragedy she has ever suffered. The woman without whose DNA her life would not have been possible.

The woman she exists as a copy of.

Violet Paige has posed:
Violet takes a few steps sideways. Not backing off exactly. Just moving so she's not standing quite so close to Wanda. Giving the two women a little space. If she had any sense she'd run. Her reputation for being fearless in the face of bad decisions be damned.

But no.

Something inside her, that little voice of common sense which governs a persons self preservation instinct, got broken long ago. The rolling motion shifts from checking she's not broken a bone to limbering up for a brawl.

There's a snort of laughter from the socialite. "Ah yeah. There we go. The bad people did mean things to me. So now I get to be just as bad as them. Or worse." There's a flash of memory which Madelyne might pick up on. Teachers experimenting on students. Breaking them down and reshaping them into tools. The glint of a scalpels held by looming figures in surgical masks. "Serves me right for giving a shit."

"Try do one nice thing and you get a classic villain rant." Her eyes roll. "You ever think maybe people would stop trying to jump you on the street if you weren't threatening to set them on fire?" A beats pause. "No? Well. If you two are going to start royally fucking shit up here then at least give all the morons with the cameras time to run for it."

She gestures at the few people still recording. "Yes. /YOU/. FUCK OFF. It's not a god damn show." She snatches one of the cellphones off someone and hurls it into the distance. "Go. Fetch. I don't care if it's broken. Sue me. I could /not/ care less."

Hopefully the prospect of terminal phone damage is a better motivation to flee for safety than the immediate danger from this bitchy Jean lady.

Fuck she could really go for a joint about now. A little genetically engineered super weed imported from Madripoor. If nothing else she could blow it at Trench Coat lady to chill her the fuck out....

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
The taunt is taken for what it is, Wanda not taking the bait, instead remaining an unmoving bastion between Madelyne and her prey. A single, shining beacon amongst the chaos even if Wanda herself is _made_ of it entirely. Both body and soul pure chaos incarnate with a deeper, darker presence underneath. Yet it's through her sheer will she is here, whole and sane, and most of all unafraid.

For there is no power that she has not been able to tame so far.

"You know me." Sometimes Wanda isn't exactly on par with how famous the Avengers have become, much to her chagrin, "What they want to do to you is the same they would do to me." She says in a soft yet firm voice, "Capture us, study us. Their fear of the unknown drives them in their rage. You may not be Jean but that does not make you any lesser, or better, than the one you have the face of. But it still makes you one of us." a mutant, it implies.

Still, as Madelyne goes and announces herself as Jean to the world there's a narrow of her eyes, "Careful." She tells Violet as the other woman taunts back at Maddie, then looks back at the other redhead, "You have a choice here. What will it be?"

Madelyne Pryor has posed:
You know me.

Madelyne's lips twitch. A smirk, just barely there, sharp and knowing. Wanda's surprise is obvious, and for a flicker of a second, Madelyne enjoys it. Of course she knows Wanda Maximoff. Who doesn't?

But then Wanda keeps talking. And keeps talking.

And the words hit too close.

You may not be Jean, but that does not make you any lesser...

Her body stills midair. Her expression locks.

How does she know?

Does she know Jean? Is she another one of her devoted little followers?

The flames in her hand flicker, just slightly, her focus fracturing under the weight of the question. But Wanda isn't disparaging her. She isn't condemning her, either.

She's offering an olive branch. A tether. A place.

And for a single, silent heartbeat, the rage in Madelyne's eyes dims.

Then -- Violet speaks.

Ah yeah. There we go. The bad people did mean things to me, so now I get to be just as bad as them.

The shift is instant. Visceral.

Madelyne's head whips toward Violet, the fire in her palm blazing hotter as she hovers forward, closing the distance fast.

"I wasn't the one who provoked them!" Her voice spikes, sharp, furious.

A muscle in Madelyne's jaw twitches. Her stomach knots, something deep and ugly twisting beneath the rage. She points a finger at Violet, the flames licking at her knuckles.

"Should I have let them have me?!"

Her voice shakes with the weight of it, the accusation, the thing she isn't saying.

She knows what would have happened.

She sees it in Violet's mind, too. The glint of a scalpel. The weight of hands holding her down. The metallic cold of something sharp against skin.

And that... that is almost too much.

Madelyne hovers closer, her emerald eyes glowing bright again.

"Or maybe I should let them have you, if you're so keen on the idea..."

The flames in her palm flare, bright and hungry. A heartbeat away from something irreversible.

But then -- something pulls at her.

Maybe it's Wanda, still standing sentry, still watching with that knowing patience that grates against her. Maybe it's Violet, the way she doesn't back down, doesn't run, just stares her down like she's seen worse monsters.

Maybe it's the way the city still watches, waiting for her to prove them right.

She exhales sharply. Snaps her head away from Violet, away from Wanda, back to the men.

And then -- she lets it go.

"Have them." The words are spat. Flat and emotionless.

She turns away, fire still flickering at her fingertips.

"There will be more just like them."

Her eyes darken.

"There are always more."

And then she's rising higher into the air, closing her eyes against the wind as she _flies_ away -- not a bullet, but not interested in sticking around for further conversation, either.

Violet Paige has posed:
Violet's eyes flick between Jean or possibly not Jean after all, who the fuck knows right know, and the Avenger.

A long pause. She might be trying to stare the redhead down. Or possibly she's expecting to be fifty foot down the street trying to pull herself out the wreck of a car. And hadn't really planned for what to do if violence doesn't begin.

It's probably the latter.

And then Jean-not-Jean relents. The tall Gothamite lets out an exhalated breath she didn't realise she'd been holding in.

"Doesn't look like they're really interesting in a round two..." she helpfully points out. Hand digging into her pocket. Definitely needs that smoke. "Think I'd do okay."

She winces. Maybe she'd help more if she just keeps her mouth shut.

As if on autopilot her hands begin rolling. No tremble to her motions. A habit so ingrained even life and death peril isn't phasing her. Or maybe it's a cyborg thing!

It's not until Madelyne makes her dramatic exit she blows a ring of smoke into the air. "Guess I have plenty of witnesses for why I missed the show." Silver linings.

Wanda Maximoff has posed:
The tension in the air is near palpable, the weight of what could happen if any of them just takes that final step forward in what would become an irreversible decision hanging over their heads. Flickers of energy flow through the Witch, a glaze of red on her eyes while she waits. Endures the accusations and the anger. But she has had good teachers in enduring that with both Steve and Banner having shaped her into becoming who she is today. As most the Avengers have.

Silence is all the answers that come out of Wanda, only in the end she speaking up with a simple, "I will find you." her tone not aggressive, still as calm as before. But just like before it is not an offer but instead a certainty. It will happen.

Madelyne flies away and Wanda looks at the men passed out on the ground. They will be taken care of by the police. Yet how long will they stay in jail? Most likely only a few days. A sigh and she is glancing at Violet, "You have a good heart, be careful not to lose it." a pause at the theatre show is mentioned again and then she just can't resist...

"Please don't tell me it's the Hawkeye show."