Thankfully it was a beautiful day in New York City. In light of a recent series of attacks from a rogue mutant the city needed some sunshine. Geo was thankful more for the fact it meant he got some field time. Slightest bit of rain made him useless and he had been looking for an excuse to get some fresh air with Astrid. He worried about her. With her mutations being so physical and mutant relations being what they were she didn't get much out time. At least in the Councilors opinion. Astrid had been a ward to him for the past few years. He had been more than happy to step up and help Becca with her taken daughter. Especially wanting to insure that she got all the necessary aspects of a 'normal' child hood. Something he hadn't had the luxury of nor had many of the other members of the X-men team. Of course when you lived life on the run as vigilantes 'normal' was relative.

Impact's strict monitoring schedules had paid off and they had received a tip. The rampant mutant seemed to be targeting the famous Rockefeller center for his latest bout of chaos. Made sense to the elemental. The hub was full of people, the plethora of businesses in the area kept a steady flow of foot traffic flowing over the concrete steps and terraces. An easy target for someone trying to make a scene and cause some collateral damage. Their job was to try and nab the guy before he had the chance to cause too much trouble. The real trouble was finding him. Not all mutants had physical mutations. Mutants like himself and Impact could slip into a crowd and blend easily. Folks like Astrid and Roach had themselves a whole other level of trouble. This guy could blend in for the most part. From the intel they had gathered he had some sort of dark energy based tendrils that protruded from his back so he had at least some difficulties trying to cover up.

Geo stood off to the side of the square, casually leaning against a building at the entrance to an alley. He wore his X-man leathers, slick and form fitting with a brown trim running along the material. What separated him from most of the others was the lack of material on his limbs. He left his arms and feet exposed to give him more of an advantage with his abilities in combat which went nicely with the leather pack he kept on his back with his emergency dirt. Never leave the amount of earth you had to work with to chance in a city like New York. The only addition to his general uniform he had added for the mission was a pair of aviator sunglasses and a white bandanna tied over his sandy hair. The square was reflected in his mirror like glasses as his eyes examined the crowd before him.

He held his ground, using the vantage point to see what he could. Astrid was elsewhere. The elemental had figured it would be best with them trying to locate a new mutant. They were still connected though, a small com in his ear gave him slight feedback. Wincing Geo tapped the device before calling out in his gravelly voice.

"Keep an eye open, Seraph." A protective warning tone came from his voice as he spoke to her. His eyes looked to the skyline in searching for the young mutant though he had given her freedom to use her judgement as a vantage point. He was curious at least to see how she operated in the field. He owed a lot of thing to Becca in this life and making sure her daughter was suited for the field was the least he could do. Geo was sure she would never truly stop worrying about her adoptive daughter in combat but they could hope to at least ease the worry.

"Target's got some kind of tentacles that come out of his back. It's wicked hot out today. Look for someone a little overly dressed."

The song “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” ran through Astrid’s head, only she had changed the lyrics to “We’re Going on an X-Mission”.

To say that she was excited would be an understatement. Astrid loved going on missions. She especially loved missions where she got to fly and save people. She wasn’t sure where she would have been if not for Rebecca saving her, but she did know that it wouldn’t have been anywhere as great as where she was.

She made a mental note to tell her mom how grateful she was again. For the third time that day.

The breeze moved through her feathers, reminding her that she was up in the air, just the way she liked it. It was going to be such an awesome day. She was dressed in her X-Men uniform, a blue suit with a skirt and shorts underneath (flying in a skirt could be dangerous) that had white accents.

”I will,” Seraph spoke back in her French accent into her communicator. She was up high, just above a building, hovering far above the crowd. She had a pair of binoculars pressed to her face so she could scan the crowd for the mutant they were looking for.

Apparently, the man had tentacles on his back, which meant that he would be wearing clothing to cover them. Astrid knew a thing or two about that. Often, she would wear a large coat to cover her wings in public so she wouldn’t cause a scene. It was annoying and frustrating, so her heart went out to the mutant they were looking for. They were probably just misunderstood, she figured, and taking it out on the world in the wrong way. She kept her hopes up that they would be able to save them and rehabilitate them for a semi-normal life.

Her fingers tapped against the binoculars for a minute, but stopped suddenly. ”I think I see him!” she announced into her communicator, a little louder than she was supposed to talk into the microphone. She was just so excited. ”Ten o’clock, a little forward through the crowd. A brown-haired man wearing a large jacket. He looks dangerous.”

She wiggled excitedly, shifting the binoculars over to get a vision of Geo. She wanted to see how he would act in the situation, since he was one of the X-Men that she greatly admired. Anything that she could learn from him, she would.

Unless he needed her on the ground, she planned on staying up in the air for a while.

As the young X-man in training called into her com excitedly the small earpiece gave a sharp shriek in his ear. A smile formed in the corner of Geo's mouth as he chuckled softly at Astrid's exclamation. Had her enthusiasm for the mission not been clear before it certainly was now. She reminded him of himself when he had first joined the team.

"Good job Seraph. Thanks for being my eye in the sky." Geo pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose as he accessed the crowd. From where he one he didn't have a great vantage point so he pushed away from the wall. Sandy bare feet strode across the concrete and up to a guard rail overlooking the square. Luckily enough the landmark had a unique architecture to it. Layered stairs with wide terraces covered in pedestrians. It only took a few moments of crowd surveying to notice the man Astrid was talking about on the level below.

"Alright I've got eyes on the target." Moving back into the crowd. Years of living in the city had made him verse in navigating the crowd. Your average New Yorker wasn't dissimilar to a herding animal, easily falling into groups and moving as a singular unit. His exposed feet fell easily into pace though his tall stature allowed him to gaze over the crowd at the man who was moving against the crowd. It made him stick out like a sore thumb. As he reached the same plateau as the man Geo stepped away from the crowd, making a B line directly for their target.

"This guy has a history for violence, be prepared . I'm going to try and talk to him first." Not that he thought it would amount to much but he had to at least try. Being a mutant in this world was a difficult thing and Geo wasn't going to assume the worst on first meet. For all he knew this guy could just need someone to level with him for a change. Though he would never get the chance to. As he came up behind the man a long black tendril emerged from under the mans long coat and caught hold of the closest person it could find, a middle aged man who seemed a bit too plump for his suit. Reaching behind him Geo pulled back the seal of the bottom of his back allowing sand to fall around his feet as his pace quickened.

"Scratch that Seraph. On me, maintain a low altitude. We've got trouble." Catching the sand at his feet in his control he gathered the material around his feet churning it under him in a landslide effect to carry him forward quicker. More tentacles protruded from the coat as the wearer seemed to shrug it off and let the fabric fall to the wind. The man had a stocky frame, his coarse brown hair as much of a mess as the tattered green sweet suit he wore. He cackled loudly as another tentacle rushed out to swoop up a passing hipster girl. The remaining two tendrils lifted him into the air. His laughter grew louder as he rose above the panicked people fleeing the scene.

"Petty insects! Behold your species' next stage in evolution!" The target's eyes, hidden behind thick glasses, fell on Geo as he did his best to slide through the mob running for their lives. A snarl curled on his lips as he realized he had walked into an ambush. Coming up on the target Geo pulled the sand up from under his feet. As he ran it formed and pressed into his arms, hardening as it added to his hands and forearms.

The man stepped back at the approach, his tendrils carrying him across the platform. In a long swooping motion the tentacle holding the girl lashed out, lobbing her into the air as a intended distraction.

Seraph followed Geo’s instructions and flew lower than before, leaving her perch so that she could fly over the crowd. She had been hoping that man would be peaceful (despite what all the reports told her), but that was not the case.

The teen kept herself just a few feet over the crowd, going against gravity to keep herself parallel the ground. It was a bit of a workout to fly low and horizontal, but she didn’t mind; it helped her build up her abdominal muscles.

She stopped as the target shed his coat, though. The reports hadn’t been kidding about the tentacles. There were a lot of them. Most of the crowd backed away to avoid him, but one unlucky girl found herself being lifted into the air by a black tendril. Astrid winced, knowing how scared the girl would be, but she didn’t approach. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that she would be able to take on the man alone.

A second later, the girl was no longer being held in the air. Instead, she was being tossed into it. Astrid flew forward, knowing exactly what she had to do.

Luckily for her, the girl was small. Shorter than Astrid, but a little bit stockier. If measured, they would probably be about the same weight. So, she was able to grab her under the arms without too much strain from the weight that she was carrying. The girl flailed a little but allowed herself to be carried away from the scene. Despite the fact that she was screaming at the top of her lungs, it was obvious that she was grateful that she hadn't been left to fall to the ground. 

Seraph carried the still screeching girl over the crowd, away from the running masses of people. She set her down in a little back alleyway, far enough away from the crowd that she could have a moment to catch her breath, but close enough that she could rejoin them and run away when she was ready. It was a little sketchy, but a whole lot less sketchy than where they had just been, where there was a madman running around with tentacles on his back. 

”Are you okay?” Astrid turned to the girl and asked her in a soothing voice, placing a hand on her shoulder. The landing had been gentle, but the petite girl that she had carried over had still fallen to the ground. 

The girl had stopped screaming, but she was crying and breathing heavily. “He picked me up and threw me! A mutant threw me!” She sobbed. She stood up though, brushing off her plum coloured jeans. There didn't seem to be a scratch on her, which was encouraging. Other than being scratched up, she was alright.

”Yes he did,” Astrid nodded and pulled the girl into a hug. She squirmed a little but melted into her a second later. Astrid knew that crying people needed hugs, no matter how many times they told you that they didn’t. That was one of the few truths in life. That and glitter belonged so many more places than it was usually found in.

”I need to go now, and you need to run. Will you be alright?”

The girl nodded, and Astrid took her increasing calmness as a sign that she wasn’t lying. She really needed to get back and make sure that other people were alright. As much as she wanted to stay with the girl and walk her through her experience, there were more people that potentially needed saving. And she couldn't really leave Geo all alone. 

After pulling her into one more hug, Astrid took off and flew back to where Geo and the target were. She didn't land, instead circling above the area. Most people had already fleed, but there were a few people standing around them, filming on their phones.

"Please leave!" Astrid shouted and waved them off before looking at Geo. That last thing that they needed was more casualties.