A guy on fire. The minotaur earlier. And whatever the hell glowing a toxic yellow meant, never mind the what the rest of the so-called protestors where bringing to this mob. He had a riot shield, but what would a riot shield do here?

As a frail little animal shifter, Calley was allowed to hate mutants with the best of them, at times like this.

And Nyugen. Was continuing to not be a bro.

Calley held his ground between Cafas and his partner.

“Hey. Johnson,” he said, with the sweetest of sincerity. “Happy Birthday.”

July 23rd:

Ten days. He'd been twenty six for ten days, and he hadn't had so much as one day off. His phone hadn't survived his birthday party, as he was ruefully calling it. Not had large portions of his skin, not that any mark had lived to tell of it. The worst loss was the poor officer who'd ended up with the glowing yellow guy running into them. Short range, high intensity gamma bursts. That's what glowing yellow meant. Too many rads to count in less time than it took to blink. That mutant had been dealt with harshly. The force protected, and avenged, their own.

Consequently to having lost his phone, Cafas had not said a word to 24ths resident pet. He'd been a little preoccupied with the startling amount of coordinated attacks across the larger NYC area. One little corner of Manhattan barely registered. Yet still people were not disuaded. Business as usual, if they didn't keep living their lives, the terrorists won. That was the line being fed to them on their televisions and car radios. So they kept pouring in to Manhattan day in and day out, business and pleasure, holidayers not at all perturbed by the rampant violence.

Bet they regret it now.

If the first blockage of Jersey traffic had been an ordeal, that day was an unqualified disaster. Every bridge and tunnel in and out blocked, miles of traffic banked up for hours. The peace in the city, and indeed the country, was only tentative at best, traffic jams were pretty much the best way to break it. The roadblocks had their damn force fields again, everyone that could even approximate a barrier seemed to have been called in.

Can't wait for this to finally blow over. People must be coming from out of town just to protest for the cameras.

Cafas strolled back along the Brooklyn bridge, eyes peeled, metal sense useless with the mass of metal that surrounded him. Nothing out of the ordinary had presented itself. Many people had yelled at him, but that was hardly new. The names were unoriginal, the slurs barely registered. The most suspicious thing he saw was some hurriedly stowed bottles and bongs. Everyone would probably be sober by the time they got driving again anyway, he wasn't too worried. No, what caught his eye was a pair of black and white cat's ears approaching him.

"You're a bit outside your jurisdiction, aren't you Swartz? I'll save you the walk, cars, cars, slurs, more cars, nothing terribly worrying.

Still July 23rd

The best part of this? The best part was that he was getting to know these protestors, now. They were like old friends who glared and shouted jeers whenever they saw him. There was the green boy whose skin secreted something damn near to pepper spray, the girl with the punk rock attire that could make bubble gum pink spikes shoot out of the ground, and the blue-haired boy who could bring darkness flooding the street. And of course, who could forget their brunette force field generator, currently laying on the picnic blanket they'd brought and reading a Psych 101 textbook. The cat-eared officer gave a pleasant wave as he passed, and received the hand gestures he'd expected.

The picnic blanket was new. So was the cooler full of snacks and pop. And the camping chairs.

When they unpacked the mini camp stove around lunch time, he started to get worried.

There were new faces, too. Like the front lines they had outside the force field, holding signs as they walked through the lanes of stalled traffic. And the punks climbing the bridge supports, which he was not getting paid enough to deal with, so he was just going to keep walking this way and keep his back to that.

The only problem with that: this way lay pink.

“That you for that accurate and descriptive summary of the situation, Johnson. You'll be happy to know that all hands are on board to help this peaceful protest.” 'Peaceful protest' was given the teeth grind it deserved. Calley was getting immensely sick of peaceful protests.

Especially when they covered not one, not three, but all major routes into Manhattan. Apparently the last road closure had gone so well, they'd decided to go for round two. This time, with extra friends. Calley hadn't even seen some of these people before, and that was saying a lot, given how many he'd arrested over the last month.

On the bright side: at least the counter protests hadn't started yet. Give it another fifteen to thirty.

“Proud day to be an X-Men, isn't it?” He gave Cafas a firm slap on the back, and a grin for his NYPD reserves uniform. He'd been wearing that rather a lot lately. What, were the X's tailors not able to keep up with demand? Or did the reserves just make a tougher uniform? “I'm going to go do a circuit. Try not to let the situation explode while I'm gone, Deputy.”

The front cars were home to the truly frustrated drivers. A few—the smart ones—had simply left their contact info tucked on their dashes, and hoofed it out of here. Others—the horn-blowing red-faced morons—had decided they'd man their personal Titantics until this whole protest sank.

Even some of the protestors were starting to pack up their signs and head out.

None of the ones leaving where faces he knew. Probably that made sense: he didn't know them because they hadn't shown up to as many rallies, they hadn't shown up to as many because they weren't die hards to the cause, they weren't die hards so they weren't sticking around in the NYC summer heat when they weren't even part of the main action. It made sense.

But still.

He didn't know any of them. And they were walking rather fast.

Calley hit a button on his shoulder radio. “Swartz reporting. I'm seeing unusual activity on the East end of the Brooklyn Bridge. Protestors leaving with no cause. Nothing overtly wrong, I've just… got a bad feeling about this.”

It was possibly the lamest call he'd ever sent out.

Lame or not, it didn't stop his tail from slowly poofing as he watched that group leave. The protestors he knew, green skin and punk rock and blue hair and the others, kept on having their picnic in the center of the bridge. Nothing wrong here.

Nothing they knew about.

Snide prick. Cafas resisted the urge to flip Officer Snarkface a bird he couldn't shift into. "Every day is a proud day to be an X-man," he lied, to the retreating back of Calley. He wasn't going to engage in the thinly disguised passive aggressive quips. Mostly because he was way out of his weight division with Calley. Cafas was rather too straight forward for that.

The X-man kept walking through the alleys between lanes of stand still traffic. More insults were hurled, along with a piece of trash or two. I need to make up a bingo sheet for these things." he remarked to another cop going the other direction. A mirthless laugh followed. Thin shadows provided brief relief from the beating sunlight behind the suspension cables as even the Australian started to break a sweat. Someone needed to talk to NYPD about the colour of their uniforms.

White. I'd kill for white right now.

Cafas was not the only one stepping off the bridge onto solid land beyond the police barricades. Not by a long shot. He stopped in his tracks to examine the exodus as his shoulder radio crackled to life. A familiar voice, bereft of the snark Calley used to disguise his vulnerability, was reporting a similar event from his end of the bridge.

"Copy Swartz, we're seeing similar reports from some of the other bridges and tunnels. Keep an eye on it."

Someone's shoulder hit Cafas' ribs as they hurriedly stumbled by him. The X-man's eyebrows pulled inward at the passing familiarity of the guy's face. He'd seen him at... Ragnarok HQ? Yeah, yeah that was it. The man didn't even break stride to apologise, he just kept beating a hasty retreat from the bridge. Cafas cast a questioning glance over his shoulder, scanning for any sign of what was going on, thinking fast. A lone bag caught his eye, seemingly hastily thrown next to one of the bridge's iconic arches. One stylised R was on the pillar beside it, and one discarded can of spray paint. The bag still looked awfully full.

His hand flew to his shoulder radio. "Evacuate the bridges! NOW!"

Too late.

He'd honestly expected more fire. He didn't know why, he'd seen grenades before, but they just weren't on the same scale. Instead he got smoke and debris. Chunks of masonry that narrowly avoided his head, scraps of metal that very much wouldn't have if they hadn't turned to gas instantaneously. More blasts continued down the length of the bridge, some below, some above, all charges seemingly expertly placed. Half a second after the blasts had started, the entire span of the bridge was gone, plunging into the East river, quickly followed by the support towers.

Calley...

Flight. Flight between wing beats was a pause in life; movement carried forward, nothing above or below, a breath away from--

Falling.

Later, he didn't remember any sound to it. No coherent thoughts, no deep pressing concerns. Just a movie reel with a dramatic pause in the sound, playing out as he watched.

The bridge shook. And then it started to fall. There was a weightless moment, an elevator starting down. And then the whole world caught up:

Dust choking him. Cars shifting. Screams. Cracks. Faster and faster, the whole world fell apart.

Later, time wouldn't make sense. There hadn't been enough, and there'd been too much. The moments didn't fit together.

He shifted, but his wing was caught in his uniform, dragging him down, he couldn't get away couldn't get in the air couldn't fly--

Shields, shimmering with the same blue tinge that had stopped traffic, spreading under all of them. Catching all of them. For a moment everything was still and everyone was safe, and the brunette at the center of the bridge was burning with light, her arms out stretched--

Shattering.

Falling.

Crashing.

It wasn't the water they hit. It was the pillars, the concrete slabs, the cars, the rubble, the suspension wires snapping and striking.

The water wasn't there to break their fall. It was there to wash in afterward and cover all.

Calley was flying. He'd didn't remember getting lose. For a long time, as his black wings beat at the dusty air, he wasn't even sure how high up he was, how close to the water.

Too close.

There wasn't enough sound, now. It was too quiet. The screams were too far away, coming from high up on the road where people were already crowding to look down. There should be more noise down here. He was down here. There were other people too--

--there had to be other people too--

It was funny, almost, the way people flocked to the crumbling precipice of the on ramp. Cafas stumbled as people moved past him, seemingly oblivious to the precarious nature of their position. Cafas pushed his way to the front, strengthening the metal he could feel beneath his feet, for all the good it would do. The concrete was providing the real structural strength, the reinforcements were just there for support. And there was always the risk of more violence.

He ended up standing, ears ringing, the toes of his boots dangerously close to a gaping chasm of dust, debris, and worse. The water below showed little sign of what had just transpired, here and there bodies, but most had been in their cars. He scanned as best he could for that silly uniformed cat, but didn't see him anywhere. That was a good sign, right? Choking back tears he forced himself to focus on the task at hand.

Help the people you can. Get them safe.

"Everyone, please leave the area, this ramp may still collapse. This is going to be on the news, please disperse and call your loved ones. They need to know you're alright." Cafas' voice carried well, aside from the slight break and quiver, though it sounded distant in his ears. He swallowed his own panic and began to shepherd people back, those who were either too shocked or too dense to listen. "Seriously, this is an emergency and I am a police officer, that is an order. Get clear of the ramp." Those still to stubborn to listen received warning shoves. All in all it took thirty seconds to get the whole crowd moving. A few more uniformed bodies appeared out of it and began helping.

Already he could see search boats launching and motoring at top speed to the bridge sites. Cafas didn't even want to think about the tunnels. Cafas reached for his phone to call Maya, before he remembered he didn't have it. He reached for his radio, and found out just how close he'd come to flying rubble hitting him in the head.

What now... What do I do?

All the training in the world couldn't prepare him for what he was in the middle of. He raced to the water's edge without a clear plan. He couldn't swim in the river, he knew that. The current was too strong for him. He just stood uselessly by the water, desperately searching for any signs of life. So much as a flutter of hope.

"Please. Please, I don't know if there's anyone out there, but I can't lose him like this. Please let him be safe."

Before the hour was out, newscasters would already be calling in experts to discuss what had happened, to fill the airwaves and silent helicopter panoramas of the collapse with meaningful noise. Minnesotans would become hugely popular for a day or two, as parallels to their own bridge collapse were drawn and discarded.

That had been an act of stupidity and negligence. Road construction gutting an already imperfect bridge at peak hours. Thirteen dead, 145 injured. By comparison, it had fallen down in neat jigsaw slabs.

By comparison.

Comparisons fell apart when explosives were involved. The Brooklyn bridge, the Lincoln tunnel, the others—they weren't neat. They were confetti, sitting at the bottom of a river, baffling divers. There wasn't an official death toll. There wouldn't be for weeks. Not until they shifted enough rubble to get to the last of the downed cars.

Even then, some bodies—the punk rock protestor, the boy with green skin—would remain lost. With no car to trap them, nothing to hold them in place for the search teams, they would move forever to the ranks of missing posters tacked to bulletin boards at the Mansion and the Sanctuary, half-covered by lost dog signs and garage band announcements.

Below the bewildered crow, a blue-haired head broke the water with a gasp. One arm paddled in erratic starts as his other held the brunette force field maker's head as far out of water as he could.

“Help,” he coughed. “Help! Anyone! Help!”

Long minutes later, a gray-spotted harbor seal flopped onto a slab of concrete, half-in and half-out of the water line. On its back was a boy with blue hair clutching a limb brunette girl. Wound around his other hand was the arm of a hipster flannel shirt. Holding onto the other arm was a man in a soggy suit, holding out his hand to the equally soggy woman behind him, whose pink purse acted as a bridge to the next man, whose little girl looked more fascinated with the seal than scared about what had just happened.

The seal's band of survivors helped each other out of the water. Then it rolled back in, with a determined splash.

It left behind a little white cat with black spots here and there. It joined the little crowd in scouting a safe path upwards.

And then it found a certain officer.

And climbed his uniform, with no particular regard to the effect of its claws.

And tucked its warm body in the safe place between shoulder and neck.

And generally refused to be removed from said spot for quite some time.

If he wouldn't have looked patently insane, Cafas would have broken down crying and hugged the cat and cried some more. As it stood, however, people could see him. Very wet people in need of medical attention. If the wailing sirens nearby were any indication, such attention was nearby. He maybe did tilt his head a little to rest it on the kitty pillow. The assembled group seemed somewhat perplexed as they milled around, bereft of their animal leader. They were all looking at him expectantly, for some reason.

Oh right, the uniform.

"While the handover is hardly by the book, I'll take this from here Swartz." Cafas looked over the group and nodded to himself. He could do this. "Alright, I'm deputy Johnson. We need to get you guys somewhere safe and dry, so, I know you've been through a lot already, but I'm going to have to ask you to just push through a little more, the EMTs aren't far." He approached blue hair, who pulled back defensively, trying to shield the force fielder from him. Cafas stopped, and put a hand on the kids shoulder. "It's okay dude, really. You did well, and you did good. Now let me carry her the last bit for you, you look exhausted."

Blue relented, and Cafas led the group around what was left of the concrete ramps towards the cluster of ambulances, Cafas carrying brunette, Suit helping purse walk on her injured ankle, dad carrying his little girl, holding her like he'd never let go.

As they neared, Blue caught up to Cafas and, after a nervous pause, spoke. "This is our fault, isn't it?" Cafas turned his head to look down at the sodden and afraid protestor over the furry loaf tucked into his neck. He stopped, even as the limp brunette got heavier by the minute, so he could better address the young man. Not that much younger than him, actually. Just less experienced. "What's your name?" Blue looked confused, but answered regardless. "Danny." Cafas nodded.

Going to hear that name a lot I suspect.

"Well Danny, people are going to try to tell you it is. They'll say you were involved in the whole plan. They'll say you should be brought to justice. It's going to be bad. It's going to be scary. But you are not responsible for that." He jerked his head bridgeward, and received claws to the shoulder for it. "That right there, was not your fault. It is the fault of a group of madmen, who want nothing more than to watch this world burn. So be strong, and never forget who is actually to blame."

Danny looked pensive for a moment, as Cafas started walking again. Eventually he broke his silence, mere yards from the cordoned off medical treatment zone. "Is Bubbles going to be okay?"

Cafas took a moment to figure out exactly who bubbles was, until he remembered the forcefields and the signature bubble gum. "Well, she's breathing, thanks to you. Hopefully she was knocked out by the sudden pressure on her mutation, because I don't see any blood to suggest she hit her head. I'd say short of pneumonia from the liquid in her lungs, she'll be okay when she's warm and rested." He cast a smile to Danny, trying to keep his own spirits up just as much as the kid's.

EMTs rushed out to meet them, and started shepherding people to ambulances, wrapping them in thermal blankets. Bubbles was put on a gurney and wheeled off, Danny refusing to leave her side. Cafas wished them the best, and hoped they could escape the worst of what would be thrown at them. His hand rose to his shoulder and gave the cat a scratch behind the ear. "I'll head back to the same spot if you have any more. Just... Can we talk later? Properly. I was scared that the last thing I was ever going to have said to you was some snarky bullshit. I don't want that."

He began the jog back to Calley's landing. Sentiment and argument could wait. For the moment, they had people to save.

((ooc: Continued in Break Room Blues))