As blood tricked down his forehead, Ashton pondered how his day had begun. IA, all over the office. Quin and him, getting records on the cops who'd recently beat up a mutant reporter, avoiding attention from IA. Alt Tabbing out when someone walked by. Google Documents. More like good smokescreen. Nobody had questioned him. Nobody'd cared. Everyone's minds had been focused on other things. Overnight, there'd been a change in the atmosphere of the city. Overwhelming tension. And it was rising.

The officers had been acquitted of their assault on the gargoyle girl. They'd had relatively clean records before that. Nothing to make him think they were dirty, anti-mutant, or any of that. Which made the whole thing fishy to him... and it wasn't like he could talk to them. They were under supervision... or at least, he assumed so. He hadn't yet poked his nose into that.

They'd pored over records at their computers over lunch, carefully avoiding keyboard crumbs. PB&J. Quin had objected. But it had been better than the junk food in the machines, and they hadn't wanted to go out.

Evening came. Reports were already coming in about troubles on the streets. Danger. He'd decided it might be nice to take Quin home. Which had led to...

Which had led to...

Crap. He opened his eyes to see a world, upside-down. What exactly had it all led to, again?

It was dark...and it hurt. Those were the only two things that Quin could really focus on. There were other things, sounds, feelings...but it was all so muted. She was floating, and she was thinking. Was she at home in bed? Had Ashton taken her home? Was he still there? She thought she could smell the distinct cinnamon scent that always accompanied her partner. Why did it hurt?

They'd been doing their digging, and it had been astonishingly easy. Everyone was so occupied with the tension in the city that a couple of Detectives discreetly digging through personnel files had gone completely unnoticed.

Quin groaned and cracked her eyes open. Her shoulder was pounding and her neck felt like someone had gotten her in a nasty headlock during an aikido training session. Double vision cleared slowly, but her head was heavy.

"Ashton...are we upside down?" she whispered...man, her head was pounding. No...wait...that was the sound of things hitting metal...hitting the car? They were in their car.

"Ashton?"

Thump. Thump. Thud. Green feet ran past the spider's web that was the front window. A second later, something heavier and pinker, with black parts like pig's hooves stomped after the green feet. It seemed the glass had maintained its structure, rather than falling in on them. That was good.

One by one, Ashton took note of the things that were.

"Quin. Stay still."

Their vehicle had flipped.

He vaguely remembered a giant pair of pig hoof hands grasping the front of the car. It had been his squad car, rather than the Taurus. He hadn't thought the city would be bad enough they'd get targeted just because their hood was white and black, and their lights occasionally spun red and blue.

The seat belts were holding them in place. Good.

The roof of the squad car was dented in in some places. One was directly above... technically under... his partner's head. It looked jagged. It looked dangerous. Hence the 'stay still'.

He'd also bumped his head, it seemed. Enough to draw blood. That was ultimately unimportant to him, as the noises outside and his partner's current predicament soundly trumped it.

"Stay. Perfectly. Still."

A freaking T-rex stomped past their shattered window, making the spilled coffee pooled on the car's interior roofing ripple like that scene in Jurassic Park.

Quin had gotten in some pretty hairy situations since she'd become a cop...heck, she'd almost died once and her partner had had to save her ass. She hadn't had time to be scared then though...now she was terrified. Terrified and powerless.

Aikido and gun training, working with her powers, and everything else she'd done to make sure she was never in a situation like this had become useless in an instant. How had they gotten upside down? Everything was fuzzy, and Ashton was telling her to stay still.

"Okay..." she whispered, trying to figure out what was going on. There were feet walking by, the windshield was spidered, but holding them up. It was safety glass, and Quin could feel the subtle vibrations from it. She concentrated and the plastics between the layers of the glass solidified and shored up a bit.

She tried to remember what was going on...how they'd gotten in this position...but the last thing she remembered was peanut butter...she could still taste it.

"What happened? " she asked finally, taking a deep breath to try and calm herself, "I think I hit my head...what do we need to do?"

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He could get undone, if he wanted to, but then he'd be falling on his face in the car, and that wasn't something he really desired.

"Pig Man," He illuminated.

There was a scream outside, and he didn't quite see a streak of green go flying by the glass. The T-rex feet turned, and started stomping the way the green had potentially gone... if he'd actually seen what he'd thought he saw. Something hit the car's undercarriage with a 'klang.'

Ashton started thinking about how to get them out. "Sounds like chaos out there... but it's worse in here. Like fish in a barrel. I think the pig didn't like us pigs. I can get you out, Quin..." He stated. Judging from the tone of his voice, though, he didn't seem all too confident in what he was suggesting.

Man...they'd really stepped in it this time...

Quin was having trouble holding on to thoughts. Realization dawned, however slowly, that she probably had a concussion. Ashton was talking, and she nodded slowly.

"Pig man.." she echoed...why were animal people always jerks? First a pink elephant, now a pink pig...maybe animals had nothing to do with it...maybe it was just the color pink.

Her partner suggested that he could get her out, and Quin turned to look at him. There was blood running down Ashton's face, and he looked about as jammed into the car as she was. How was he going to get them out...

....oh

"No..." she said, "If you pass out, I'm in no shape to carry you...and for some reason, I feel like them realizing we're not just cops, but mutant cops is going to make things worse.

"Well, crap." He was in no condition to teleport her out, anyways, even if she hadn't keyed onto exactly what he'd been worried about. "I really need to beef up that whole 'side-by-side' teleportation deal some day..." He muttered, face pinched in annoyance.

"By the way... if you move... be careful. The roof is spearing up near your head... We might have no choice but to port."

Something else clattered against the undercarriage. It looked like the T-rex was gone. That was good. But it wouldn't be long before people remembered there were people in the car. So far, he assumed they'd just figured they were dead. Appearing in front of them certainly wouldn't help anything. But... *#$%!

Quin looked down at herself. She wasn't wearing a vest, and Ashton made a valid point. If they couldn't come up with a better idea, they weren't going to have any choice but to teleport out of the car. The redhead focused...focused really hard on trying to figure out an answer.

Ashton pointed out the damage to the car, and Quin looked up. Sure enough, the top of the car had bowed down. Luckily...it was made of plastic too...a much tougher plastic than the rest of the car...but fiberglass counted.

Concentration was still tough, and made her head hurt like hell, but slowly the dent in the car pushed itself out, and the car wiggled just a little as the ceiling retracted into itself. It fixed one immediate problem, but the big one still remained.

Drake was right...if they stayed there, eventually the mutants outside would remember that they'd flipped over an occupied police car. Simply waiting things out wasn't really an option.

Quin took a deep breath and swallowed before she spoke.

"You could port yourself out and go for help...." she suggested.

Clang. He let himself drop out of his seat. Bruises be damned.

"No." He grimaced, cheek against fiberglass. His forehead smeared against the interior. "I'm not going to just leave you in the car. I'll just..."

He pushed himself up, and moved to help her with her seat buckle. Actions spoke louder than words.

It was kind of loud when Ashton dropped himself out of his seatbelt. Of course he wasn't going to leave her behind, even for a minute. She started to protest, but then closed her mouth. Quin knew the tone of voice that her partner had used, and he wasn't going to change his mind.

He started helping her with her seat belt, and Quin let him, two pairs of hands working on the seat belt weren't going to help anything in such a tight space. Raising her arms so she could brace them on the inverted roof of the car, she grimaced at the pain in her shoulder, and watched Ashton's face as he worked. If she hadn't been so dazed, she might have noticed their proximity.

"What's our next move?"

Ashton's fingers found the belt on her waist, metal of the buckle standing out against the cool grey of her slacks. His brow furrowed as his fingers fumbled with the mechanism of the buckle, and he tried his best to ignore proximity. Now wasn't the time to focus on something like that. Try as he might, though, he couldn't help but notice the scent of vanilla.

The buckle slid open, and an arm went up against the shoulder of her button-up purple pinstripe shirt, steadying her. Slowly, carefully, he helped her down out of her seat, so she could join him crouching on the car's interior. A hand pressed against her lower back for support at one point as they moved, to help her descent. She didn't deserve to plant her face against the ceiling like he had. She'd already gone through enough. Once they were both on the ceiling, he addressed her question.

"If the doors don't open, we might have to force a window down or out." His eyes skimmed over her face and her body, checking for any other notable injuries, jerked once to glance at the windshield, then settled back on her face. "Are you in any shape to force the windshield out with your power?" His voice all this time had been quiet. He was avoiding drawing undue attention from the crowd.

The help was greatly appreciated as the mechanism clicked loose, and Quin found herself subject to the laws of gravity. It was then an impressive feat, getting long limbs situated so she could squat in the car. Being right-side-up helped with some of the vertigo, but the vigorous pounding in her head was still making Quin a little bit woozy.

The way Ashton was looking at her...was full of partnerly concern, she decided.

Her partner spoke, and the redhead chanced a glance in the direction of the back seat. Things back there weren't too crumpled, they would probably have a good chance of getting clear if they took that route. Feet were still passing by, and now that she could focus a bit better, Quin could hear the angry mob noises that tended to accompany this sort of thing.

"I can do it, but then what?" she said, reaching over to turn Ashton's head so she could get a look at his cut. He was going to have to make the big plans...

"You're going to need stitches." she said.

"It's not so bad," He downgraded his wound. "Anything head-level looks bad, and bleeds like a bitch... but that's all. Looks."

As for looking toward the next steps... "Once we're out, we'll probably want to get clear. We don't want to try and deal with the mob... not until our heads are screwed on straight. And I need to check you out."

"I know." was all Quin said in response to Ashton's protestations. In all honesty, she wasn't up to arguing with him about the severity of his head injury. It was bad enough that it existed.

The plan was sound enough, though, and she had to chuckle and shake her head a bit before focusing on the back of the car. The seals around the back window were plastic, as were the middle parts of the safety glass, so were the little wrappings around the wires that provided the functionality for the rear defroster. Removing the window would be a piece of cake. Quin concentrated and the outer seals simply melted away, into a puddle on the bottom of the car. That done, the window hung suspended by nothing but her powers. From there, the safety glass and the wire insulation were enough to move the piece of glass out until it fell over.

"Not bad considering I was seeing two the whole time..." she commented. "You go first, I don't know if I could pull you out right now..."

Silently, Ashton thanked his lucky stars that the squad car at that moment hadn't had a cage. That would have complicated things. As it was, Quin managed the task easy enough. He crouched quietly as he watched her work. The window fell over, and Quin said something.

Ashton gave her a pat on the back, then slipped past her, into the back seat, through the back window. Then, he turned back to help her out, keeping low.

"Aim for the right one." He said wryly, making fun of her double-vision.