16166/Today's Your Lucky Day

Today's Your Lucky Day
Date of Scene:	25 October 2023
Location:	Mutant Town
Synopsis:	The X-Men (and friends) encounter Longshot, but a threat from someone who seems to know him sends the newcomer into hiding.
Cast of Characters:	Longshot, Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, Rogue, Ororo Munroe, Spiral, Evan Sabahnur

---

Longshot has posed:
It is, sadly, the same story that has played out so many times recently. It is almost not even worth reporting on the news. A few mutants going the wrong place at the wrong time, and run into a group of mutant haters. Things escalate, bottles are thrown, the mutants huddle against each other, hoping beyond hope that if they just wait them out, the angry mob will leave them be once they get out their aggression.

And maybe saturation has been reached, and this would have gone unreported, if not for something at least slightly unusual.

Cell phone photo captures the moment, just barely at the top of the screen, as one of the mutant haters is live streaming the verbal tired against the two teenage mutants. There is a wink of light in the sky, almost like a flash from an old school Kodak camera. And where before there was nothing, there is sudden a man. A falling man.

He hits the ground with a sickening thump which brings the confrontation to a standstill. Not that the mutant haters care, of course, about the apparent death of a human being in front of them. If anything, it amuses them, even as it brings one of the mutants to tears.

Their laughter stops as the man starts pushing himself off the ground. A quiet falls over the mutant haters as the man slowly stands, running fingers through his long blond hair. They timidly call out insults. Pretty boy, they start with. He looks around in confusion, and one throws a bottle at him, and he puts up a hand to block his face and they notice that has only three fingers and one thumb.

"Mutie scum!" they call out at him, much to his confusion.

The two mutants huddled against the wall look to him, and one breaks away to run over to him. "Are you o--" the teenage boy gets out before a brick smacks against the side of his head, sending him tumbling to the ground, leading to uproarious laughter from the group.

It dies as the blonde turns to look at them, his confused look turning suddenly very focused. One eye flashes for a moment, and then those mutant hands flash down to retrieve blades from a bandolier. The view shifts from the POV of the video-taker as the camera seemingly drops to the ground, and for a moment it captures seemingly impossible leaps and twist by the blond as he flashes across the screen.

And the screams echo from the men whose luck seems to have suddenly run out.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Along with various programs written by Kitty and Doug that watch the news feeds and are hacked into law enforcement services, are ones that watch social media for mutant-related posts.

The vast majority of them just get filed away, should they later need to be looked at. However, ones that meet certain criteria like being real time and including violence, send an alert out for an X-man to review.

And the live stream of the attack on the two mutants qualified. Kitty Pryde had sent out a scramble alert for any X-men able to respond. Meeting at the Blackbird, she soon has it airborne with anyone on board who showed up, and turns the nose towards the city.

"Before we get there, I'll start jamming their live stream and phones so there isn't any video of it," Kitty suggests. "Can drop off everyone somewhere nearby and put the plane on autopilot."

Emma Frost has posed:
And one of those along, for better or worse, is Emma Frost. Sitting in the back she muses. "I'll scan around and make sure there's no one else in the area. If they have anyone around I can make them depart." She's asking, not saying she will. But, being able to shut down every mind about for a few miles will hopefully make resolving whatever issues of humans showing they're the greatest monsters in the multiverse simpler.

"Anything else we should be expecting? Hostiles or unknowns?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is lougning on one of the passenger benches in the back of the jet. In her green and gold bodysuit, her phone out and one knee up to support it against, she just swipes through a social media video site, watching all manner of dumb videos that people are constantly drip feeding on to the internet. She glances up at the cockpit as they angle toward the city, and draws in a breath after hearing the jist of what is happening, but ultimately her green eyes drop back to her phone.

She reaches for her jacket hanging from the wall beside her, and fishes out a stick of gum from the side hand warmer pocket. It's soon unwrapped and slipped in to her mouth. Chew. Chew. Chew.

Swipe, swipe,m swipe.

Ororo Munroe has posed:
Storm nodded in agreement, being one of the X-Men able to respond on the short notice, "Aside from the brief video footage? That's an excellent question." She looks at those assembled, then back towards Kitty, "Just be careful. Whoever this new arrival is, we don't know their intentions. Considering they landed in the middle of /that/ and were immediately attacked..." She trails off, eyes narrowing a bit.

Spiral has posed:
Spiral is swiping through some manner of Reddit rabbithole on her phone when the hatestream rapidly becomes upvoted on some of the subs she's obsessed with. She's got alerts for these kinds of things, and not exactly due to any sort of heroic reasons. She's not impressed, as the level of abuse doesn't even seem to warrant a vote of her own. "Boring."

She's about to try and rewind the stream, in case she's missing some context when a quite familiar shock of blond hair and the owner of it seems to literally fall into the frame and demand she take notice. Her device is flicked sideways, her head tilts in the opposite direction as another hand comes in to pinch and flick and try and focus on. "What. What?!"

Spiral scratches the screen with a fingernail on reflex, a faint crunch as the casing suffers warranty-breaking levels. Her eyes widen, trying to geo-locate where the stream is coming from before having to resort to messier measures. She's too anxious and aggravated. Nope, she's got to get up, stand up, spin blades and snarl out sorcery to begin the process of wrenching her from here...to there.

Longshot has posed:
By the time the X-Men arrive in their Blackbird, the fight is ended, but the conflict hardly is.

The would-be attackers are all on the ground or scattered back from the two mutants, with minor injuries but mostly just intimidated by the figure that danced in their midst and dropped all of them with an acrobatic routine nearly worthy of Batman. Moans and groans slip forth as they try to gather up and decide what to do, while the stranger kneels beside the teen who took the brick to the head. His companion is attempting to hide behind a trashcan, frozen in place and unable to go over towards her injured friend.

One of the members of the group starts looking to the others, exchanging nods and glances. With the blond facing away from them, on his knees, and seemingly distracted, they start to pick up what they can find nearby. A discard pipe. Another brick. One pulls out a knife.

Slowly, their courage restoring, they start to advance on their assailant.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde double checks the stealth systems. "Emma if you can keep everyone from noticing the Blackbird," she says. Standard procedure coming into a populated area with the plane.

"There's two mutants who a crowd are rioting around. A third person dropped in and is getting attacked by the crowd," she says, checking the feed one last time as the plane is coming in. "Ok, shutting down their phone's recording capabilities so anyone will just think they are recording," she says.

The monitor on the plane's console showing the video continues, Kitty's hack into the phone sending it to them, but blocking it from going out to the internet. They can see the acrobatic attacks of Longshot as he takes down those attacking him and the two huddled mutants.

"Ok, here we go," Kitty says, the plane decelerating rapidly and dropping down above one story building where they can hop out and easily make the jump to the ground from there. Kitty will make sure everyone is out ok and then set the plane to circle until called back to pick them up, then follow.

Evan Sabahnur has posed:
    Evan doesn't receive an alert as he isn't an X-Man quite yet, but as he's helping out around Hope House in Mutant Town as he has been for the past year or so, he's nearby. Once the stream is noticed, it spreads quickly through the mutants staying then, and thus to Evan as well. Once he sees what's going on, he heads for the door, eyes flashing angrily. Recognizing the location in the video, two strides past the door a peregrine falcon soars into the sky, banking to head in the direction of the latest hate crime against his people.

    Once he gets some height, he dives in the direction of the event, using his current form's speed to good advantage. Sharp eyes pick out the figures advancing on the blonde man, and he tucks his wings in, diving towards the one with the knife, preparing to slash his talons across the knife wielder's wrist if he's still standing and holding the knife when the speeding falcon reaches him.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost would take a breath for a moment as Kitty would go to guide the Blackbird in. "Well, looks like the area has already been cleared.. Rather helpful chap he is. I'm not recognizing him at all. Is he on any particular lists of contacts we should know?" Because that outfit /and/ that David Bowie level mullet had to clearly be a cape.

Emma goes to fold her hands together and moves to try and start to scan the area, trying to pick out other things. Further hostiles, threats, more civilians.. The two hoodlums, even with themselves being down would hardly be the last of them.

Ororo Munroe has posed:
There is, in the distance, a clap of thunder as Storm does not look... happy, at the scene. She frowns, "Let's even the odds a little, shall we? Emma, can you make contact with him?" Her eyes glow, as fog starts to roll in, obscuring the two mutants that were the original targets from the crowd.

Once the Blackbird is hovering, she soars out, using the wind currents to carry her above the fray, allowing her a good view of what's happening from this angle.

Rogue has posed:
Once the Jet settles down, Rogue stands up. She slips her jacket on over her shoulders, fluffs her hair out the back over the collar, then slips her phone in to the interior pocket. She doesn't walk out of the Blackbird, so much as she raises up and floats out of it with one leg extended behind her and the other with her knee pointed down to the ground below.

She sweeps out of the SR-77 and instantly begins to gain altitude as she starts scanning the area outside with her eyes darting from left to right.

Spiral has posed:
Spiral would have come in disguise, cloaked in some magic to appear mundane, but the need for speed was too great. It's also affected her accuracy in slicing through the distances. There's a sound of fabric tearing to herald her arrival. Graceful removal of the stitching of reality is torn through with something like the raw rip of a toothy supernatural chainsword rather than a tailor's scissors.

The portal will be short lived, with just seconds of torturous flapping, and Spiral leaps through while she can. Her motion brings her sliding along the ground, trailing wisps of magic, in her full regalia. It's hardly a heroic entrance, only on the periphery of the situation, more than 60 yards away surely. The sight of a six-armed woman with a blade in each hand, like Kali, scatters some. But the main attraction is the arrival of those helpful and timely seeming X-men.

Practically panting, her teeth bare and she stares out. Despite her looney tunes speedy sorcery, they stole a march on her. She shouldn't have taken that left leyline at Albuquerque.

Longshot has posed:
The blond is completely absorbed with cradling the figure in front of him. The mutants that can sense the state of people and their mind will know that the boy is injured, but not badly. Likely not even a concussion, despite the sickening look of that impact, but he is a bit in shock, as much from the wound as from the sudden arrival of the blond figure. Savior? Or another tormenter? The girl hiding behind the trash can seems to have not come to any conclusions either, lingering for more information.

And so it is that the blond is unaware of the creeping group behind him. Until a racing figure from the sky slashes down to take out one of his would-be attackers just short of a potential impact.

Twisting to look back in that direction at the sound of the impact, that one eye is positively beaming.

The stranger is certainly lucky as bona fide heroes suddenly appear to help quell the scene.

Evan Sabahnur has posed:
    Talons slash red tracks across the back of the knife wielder's wrist and hand, causing him to drop the knife with a shouted profanity. The falcon emits a shrill scream as it strikes, then twists and suddenly becomes a fairly large man sliding across the pavement on his feet from the momentum of the landing.

    Ignoring the disarmed man for a moment, he turns his gaze to the others and snarls "You should be somewhere else, and fast." Glancing up as the X-Men arrive he adds, "You're very badly outnumbered right about now."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
The group in mostly matching X-men outfits heads towards Longshot and the crowd of rioting mutant-haters that he's downed. "We're friends," the young brunette woman calls out. "Come to try to make sure nothing tragic happened here," she says.

Kitty's eyes sweep about the area. "Though it looks like you did a good job of handling it already," she says. Her eyes follow the falcon as it grows into a large Evan, then look back over to Longshot and the two mutants he was protecting.

"We're the X-men," she offers towards Longshot. "Are you all ok? Do you need medical help?" she asks.

Emma Frost has posed:
The arrival of Spiral on the scene is very, very difficult to miss. The sheer anarchy of her thoughts makes Emma's head twitch. She's not able to change that mind.. But she can at least read it. She takes a breath and then goes to relay to the rest of the team.

"Spiral is on site. From what I'm.. Picking up from her she seems familiar with him. In the way that one might find out an ex was still alive. NOt sure if she's happy to see him still about or that she lost the hcance to kill him in the first place."

Emma's not going to be able to do anything to Spiral mentally. The witchy, freaky woman's mind is so /warped/ that it can't even control itself, much less letting someone else do that.

Ororo Munroe has posed:
Ororo decides to take a page from the playbook of a certain Gotham City hero. Something about superstitious and cowardly lots, as she hovers in the air, right before a MASSIVE bolt of lightning illuminates the space behind her. Her figure a silhouette against that as she glares down at the mutant haters. Then she looks at them, and simply says one word.

"Leave."

When Emma mentions Spiral, though, her eyes immediately narrow, as that does complicate things. For good or ill, who knows, but it definitely makes things far more interesting.

Rogue has posed:
While Storm is providing the dramatics, Rogue is flying not too far away, though she does look back over a shoulders when lightning is provided. Hard not to gawk at that kind of power being displayed!

"Quite a party goin' on here." She says over the team comms net whilst swooping low enough to get a better look, as well as draw some attention up to her and away from what is going on down below. In situations like this, sometimes just unsettling the unruly crowds on the ground can be enough to make them spread out, or outright disperse.

The Belle sweeps up toward a balcony on the side of a building where she touches down with one foot, the other simply standing in the sky now, as her eyes go back to what is unfolding.

Spiral has posed:
Spiral straightens from her budget version of Back to the Future. They couldn't even afford to spring for flames along where her heels skidded. In pairs of two, her blades are flicked and spun until she has an array of the things at the ready. As much to dissuade someone from approaching as to defend herself if need be.

"You don't belong here!" Spiral shouts out, seemingly directing it towards Longshot. It could just as easily be some old woman shouting at clouds, or going full Karen about her lawn. She helpfully extends an arm, pointing with a gleaming katana towards the man who fell from the sky.

The muscles along her jaw clench and the spasms of agitation throughout her body feel like a pillowcase of ferrets trying to bust out. She has to dance 'em out. A sway to the left, a sway to the right. Rotate the hips and work those shoulders girl. The old washer cycle churn that she can somehow make appear fluid and perhaps beautiful to some. A snake charmer that wants to agitate more than entrance.

She's outnumbered, heavily, and the amount of wiggle room to do ~something~ narrows with each passing second as the most familiar of the faces slide into her recognition slots. She half imagines she can feel the tingle of the electrical discharge from the heavens running up the blades into her limbs, or the migraine strobing targeting locks converging on her. She seethes, only helping to agitate herself further with real and imagined threat. This would be the time for a good catchphrase or witty remark.

Instead, Spiral starts to spins a new weave to take the coward's way out and render herself invisible so she can crawl into a hole. Probably one with a corkboard, lots of red thread and newspaper cuttings and photos.

Longshot has posed:
There is a lot going on suddenly, even more than before, for the blond arrival to take in. Longshot leaps up from his crouch and whirls around, eye glowing, as the streak from the sky appears. Somehow, the breeze from that knocks a cardboard box over, and it tumbles over to land just beneath the head of the teenager, preventing it from smacking onto the pavement once Longshot's cradle dissipated. Lucky for both of them, perhaps.

Before he can utter a word of thank you, or concern, towards the former bird, more costumed heroes show up. His confusion increases as he watches them, and he tries to size up whether they are there to help him, or for some less friendly purpose.

When the spinning blades appear, attached to a woman, he seems decidedly convinced that these new arrivals are not necessarily good for his health.

"No argument from me!" he says as he suddenly leaps back, the propulsion from his legs sending him airborne but somehow once there, buffetted by the hefty breeze that accompanies the X-Men's arrival, he seems to glide through the air as if he were closer to weightless.

Taking him back over the two mutants he had seemingly helped, and farther away from both the angry mob and the mutant heroes.

It does not seem to matter that Spiral has vanished after her proclamation. He is trying to get someplace else before his luck runs out.

Evan Sabahnur has posed:
    Evan shakes his head, looking at the crowd of people who are still half ready to fight mutants. As the heroes arrive, he crosses his arms and says "I told you. Go hate somewhere else. Preferably somewhere far away."

    He looks up at Ororo as her lightning strike backlights her and chuckles, saying to himself "Now that's an entrance. I'll have to work on one for myself." As the blonde man almost floats away he calls out, "If you can understand me, we're friends. Thank you for helping these mutants, it's unfortunate that you had to come across a scene like this."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
There's some distance separating the X-men from Spiral, which would probably suggest that they aren't together. Also the way that Kitty gapes over at Spiral's yell. She swings her head over to Emma next. "I don't know much about her, if it's safe to be in there," she says of Spiral's head and Emma trying to get thoughts from her.

She looks back in time to see Longshot jumping up and gliding away like a windblown kite or something. "Wait, you don't have to go!" she calls out. "We're not here to hurt anyone. The opposite! Just want to make sure the mob there doesn't hurt anybody," she calls to the four-fingered mutant. "The lightning, not going to zap you, I promise," she says, trying to keep him from leaving.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost goes to twitch for just a moment as Spiral vanishes. Her forehead throbs some even as she goes to just pay strict attention to Longshot. Watching him very specifically as he would join them. "This is an interesting bit to follow up on.." Even as she moves to try and scan his mind to see what, if anything she could pick up.

Whatever has Spiral's interest is something Emma wants to know. Even as she moves to try and probe into Longshot's mind, seeing what if anything she could glean. Or if he was a blank slate much in the same way others that were from that same plane of origin were.

Emma wasn't Jean, and she wasn't inclined to give the benefit of doubt. But, Longshot had saved lives. And enraged Spiral enough to show up and then to flee. Emma would speak to the others, "Rather good show, isn't it?" While maintaining a mental network as needed.

And hopefully they can just get out of here and there's no furhter unrest. Or abnormalities.

Rogue has posed:
While standing on the edge of the balcony, someone shouts up at Rogue. "Hey, you're the real Mighty Woman, aren't you!?" This, of course, garners the Southern Belle's attention. She looks away from the situation that Kitty seems to be rushing after, and instead Rogue just drops down to the ground.

What follows is a small conversation that ends with Rogue signing an autograph, as well as posing for a quick selffie with the person who had shouted up at her. A ffew more parting words are shared before Rogue is once more in the air, sweeping up over the ground and toward where Shadowcat was last seen.

Ororo Munroe has posed:
Between Storm's lightning display, Evan's appearance with the slashing, and Spiral doing what Spiral does best... well, they might hate mutants, but they enjoy life more, as the mob disperses. Guided along a little bit by buffeting winds as Storm doens't mind punctuating the point.

Once they're gone, the winds die down and Storm floats down to land lightly not too far from Evan, "Thanks for the assistance. Would that we arrived sooner." She looks over towards the blonde and the other two mutants. While she would normally go right over... she's also aware enough that she made quite an... intimidating display, and they don't know her.

Longshot has posed:
Coming in for a soft, acrobatic landing much farther away than that leap should have afforded, the blond turns and looks back as he hears the words Kitty is calling over the din.

His gaze scans around, and seeing that the well (and multi!) armed lady who insisted he was in the wrong place is gone, as well as their would be attackers, he pauses in his retreat.

Not that he is making his way back any closer, but his gaze moves back over towards the teenage mutant who is now slowly sitting up and rubbing the side of his head where the brick impacted. NOW, the other teen runs over and throws her arm around her friend, looking back and forth between Longshot and the X-Men as if wondering who should be receiving her gratitude.

Evan Sabahnur has posed:
    Evan has no worries about approaching the mutants who were targeted. He's a common sight in Bushwick, so he's not too worried about freaking them out. He kneels beside the two of them and asks "Keep calm, we'll make sure you are taken care of. Are either of you badly hurt?"

    He's mainly concerned with the mutant with the head wound, since the other running over and hugging her friend seems to be more rattled than injured. He pats the mutant's shoulder and says, "Stay down for now until we can get someone to check on your head wound, I want to be sure you're ok before you start moving around."

    He looks over towards the X-Men and waves to get Rogue's attention, motioning her to come over since the others seem focused on Longshot. "Rogue, any of you guys got medical training? I've got someone with a head wound here that I'd like checked out before just letting them wander off."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde turns to check on the rest of the team. She waves over towards Rogue when the Mississippian starts coming back over towards them. Then Kitty walks forward, slowly so to try to avoid starting anyone, as she approaches the two mutants who were the target of the small mob's ire.

"You need medical help?" she asks, confirming Evan's diagnosis. "I know of a clinic not too far away that we can take you to," Kitty offers. "The doctor there is a good man, won't charge you or anything when he finds out what happened," she says to them.

She's talking loud enough that Longshot can hear, and glancing his way now and then, though not addressing herself to him. But wanting him to hear what's being said, clearly, so he can get a feel for who these costumed folks are.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is still up in the air, eyes down on Kitty, when Evan's waving catches her attention out of the peripheral of her vision. Angling her body in that direction, the Belle glides down toward him. Her yellow booted feet sweep out, wedge-heels touching down on the ground. She hears the question he asks of her, and softly nods her head toward him. "I can provide some basic field medical work, but anything extensive will require somethin' bigger than me." She states before looking to the injured person.

Rogue steps over to them, her gloved hands going out toward them. "Wanna go on a fly with me?" She asks in a kind voice. "Will take ya to our ride, where we got some medical equipmkent. Can get ya fixed up." She offers, glancing toward Evan again then.

Ororo Munroe has posed:
Storm blinks a little over towards where Longshot landed. She doesn't advance towards him, but rather offers him a kind wave that's a stark contrast to the look she was giving the mob earlier. Along with a friendly smile, "Hey, you did well in helping them out."

Longshot has posed:
There is a look of uncertainty as the blond looks back at the gathered X-Men. Between the outright attack on the group, the threatening weather, and the _very_ threatening pointing of the swordswoman, who may or may not be a part of the group, Longshot continues his slow retreat down the alleyway.

He glances this way and that, looking over each of them in turn, as if assessing just whether or not he can actually move away. They seem to be kind in their offer, but something in the back of his mind tickles. Not a memory - he has none of those - but a _feeling_ that those who acted nicest towards him were the least trust worthy.

As he weighs his chances, his eye begins to glow once more. Out of nowhere a large kite blows across the scene, carried by the last lingering eddies of Storm's power. It must have slipped free of a child from a nearby park, but it arcs directly towards the powerline and explodes into a fireball upon impact, showering sparks down upon the ground.

They land in a dumpster which immediately ignites, and then a cat leaps out from the fiery maw, howling in fright. It runs across the window ledge of a nearby building, knocking a glass bottle which falls, shattering into pieces that cause a few rats to go scattering from beneath the dumpster.

The fleeing rodents send a few of the remaining witnessses running for higher ground.

And in that chaos, the blond disappears into the night.

Evan Sabahnur has posed:
    Evan says "You can trust her guys. Go get checked out, then you can head home." He pulls a slip of paper out of a pocket and hands it to the less wounded mutant. "This is my number, both of you keep it on speed dial. This kind of thing ever happens again, call me right away. I'm usually at Hope House, so I'm always nearby."

    He looks to Rogue and adds "Thanks for getting here so quickly. This is getting a little less common these days, but still happens way too much. The mutant haters, I mean. Three fingered men dropping from the sky, that's a new one for me. At least he was able to whittle down the crowd a bit so things didn't get really ugly."

    His attention is distracted by the chain of minor disasters, as perhaps he is supposed to be. When he finishes being a bit stunned by the turn of events the blond is gone, so he shakes his head and says to Rogue, "By the way, when you have a minute, I'd like to talk about _that_" as he points at the Blackbird. "Think I might want to help out a bit more than just Hope House."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde looks back from the injured people, only to find the kite bursting into flames and making her wince and shy away from the bright flash.

By the time she's looked back, there's no sign of the floating mutant. She lets out a soft sigh. "Wonder who he was. He helped people but he seemed pretty out of sorts himself," she says.

She turns back to the rest of the team. "Guess we should head back, but we can keep an eye open for him. I'll set up a search to keep an eye out on social media," she says. "Glowing eye, should occasion mention."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue glances up toward the X-Men's jet, which is in VTOL mode in a pattern taking it around the perimeter of the immediate action zone. She glances back to Evan then, and offers him a friendly smirk. "Options are always on the table." She eludes before she turns to the injured Mutants. "Come on. I'll take ya for a bit of a ride. It'll be a memorable one, trust me." She says to them in a good natured sort of way.

Mere moments later, and Rogue is liffting off the ground, carrying the duo with her up toward the jet. They line up with the entry ramp, and gently float right on inside its interior. Once inside, she'll help them with the onboard medical supplies.

"Just think what your friends will say when they see us bringin' you home in this badboy." She tells them whilst working with the bandages and cleaning swabs, while the Jet moves in to pick up the rest of the team.