It was like a bad horror movie. And not just any bad horror movie, but those ones that show up on cable stations with D-List actors who are fresh off of working at Starbucks or something. It was the kind of twist that should have been expected when watching a movie like this. Hell, Jorge had guessed these kinds of things were going to happen half the time. The problem here was that this wasn’t a movie and adrenaline and being pressed for time managed to make the detective not think about all the implausible possibilities that could happen. He could have never have guessed this, that the Ragman had managed to find a way to make duplicates of himself. But right now he wished he was at home, shouting that he knew this was going to happen all along to his TV set.

The man ground to a halt as he quickly told Linely what he had surmised. Standing next to the younger man, the two of them swept their gaze across the room. All around them shrouds of rags were standing with dark humanoid shapes situated inside them. The Rag-Clones were moving slow, menacingly, but they all stepped closer to one another, forming a tighter circle as they did so. Soon any gaps were covered by the shadowy humanoids with the pale-skinned leader at the far end of the room.

Just a quick glance around them and Jorge could already see that these weren’t the best odds. The Ragmen had them completely surrounded. They shied away from the glare of their flashlights but there certainly wasn’t enough to stop all of them. If they focused on one, the creature growled and hissed but then the adjoining ones just stepped closer. They could focus on one, make if vanish and create a gap in the wall of Rags, but there certainly wasn’t enough to space for them to escape without the others snagging them.

No, for the most part it seemed as if they were totally screwed. Jorge tightened his fist, coiling the whip of water around his arm, keeping it at the ready to lash out the second they came too close. That was when Linely turned to him and stated that he had an idea. He needed for the Ragmen to get wet, all of them, for it to work. Jorge eyed him, curiously, unsure of what the man was trying to do. However he knew that desperate times tended to call for desperate measures.

Without another word, Jorge turned off his flashlight and closed his eyes. He reached out, grabbing for any sources of water he could find that would be sizeable. Puddles, leaking pipelines, a half-filled discarded bottle of water, it was around but certainly not in the doses that he needed. But it was then that Jorge felt something snag his attention, something sizeable that was on a nearby rooftop – a water tank for the building. It was a bit further than he wanted it to be but it was all that he had on hand.

A sharp breath through his nose and Jorge snagged as much water as he could muster. The ring of ragmen in enclosed but Jorge couldn’t pay attention to that. A deep-seated migraine began to pound at the inside of his head, forcing the man fall to his knee but still he pulled and churned the water in the water tank on the roof of the nextdoor building. It hummed and quivered as the water pounded on the inside until, finally, the water tank tipped over. A loud crash could be heard coming from outside, a crash that was soon followed by the sound of a torrent of water. Jorge held on, grinding his teeth and focusing on the oncoming surge, directing it as best he could until, finally, it SMASHed through the high, dirty windows of the room they were in.

Water poured in through the shattered glass, filling the room with every drop that Jorge could muster to follow his lead. Soon both detectives and the Ragmen would find themselves ankle deep in water. Jorge Braced himself against the ground as he weakly growled to his fellow detective.

”Go…”

Linely waited for Jorge to act, and saw the mutant reach out suddenly every bit of water in a large radius was floating up in the air. Then a crash from outside... they had said Jorge was powerful on his profile, but even Linely was impressed with this mutation. Then came the crash in through the windows, glass flew onto the floor, some of the Rag clones even turned round to watch the torrent of water coming upon them. Linely had remembered that the Rag-Man didn't much like water, and he presumed the clones didn't either. A couple of them started to do their best impressions of the wicked witch of the West as it became more than they could take.

Around Linely's feet , the floor had become wet, bits of yellow glass were floating on the surface of Jorge's miracle. More crucially however, a break in the circle had occurred, and the Rag Man was now open to Linely's advance. At Jorge's growl to him, Linely dashed towards the Rag-Man. Who had barely expected his little trap to have gone awry it seemed. Linely was pleased. It was time to make this scum pay. There was plenty of pain here from Jorge's last encounter. Linely thought it high time to give a reminder.

The moonlight was reflecting on the surface of the sodden warehouse floor. Linely sensed the full body pain that the Rag-Man had felt, possibly at his last encounter with Jorge, possibly from the prison which they had kept him in, it didn't matter. Soon the Rag Man was shivering with excruciating pain, like a man suffering from an electric shock. Linely nigh didn't feel the echo in his hatred. The pain was there for sure, but Linely didn't care. Emily needed to be saved, and this bastard had to pay.

The Rag Man fell to his knees, the grin on his face still wide, though this was no longer due to any sort of happiness. The being had no control over its movements, stumbling over shards of glass. Linely could sense that pain as well. Such a pity he couldn't amplify it. Linely took a few steps back as the Rag Man took one last swipe of defiance at his leg. Before a void seemed to appear from within the kidnapping mutant's ragged form.

It was like a dark,starless sky, with no moon. Very little to focus on. Linely shone his light into the void. There was a women, barely conscious, probably the Rag Man's final victim. Which begged the question, why was the mutant still active? Had he really just wanted to take his revenge on Jorge? Or was it something else?

The exhaustion was hitting him hard but Jorge wasn’t going to let that fully bring him down. He was kneeling low, breathing heavily as he tried to get his head to stop spinning. Manipulating that much water at once always took a toll on the man, but it was only exasperated by the fact that he had already been feeling a bit dehydrated and since his return he had only been dealing with miniscule amounts of water. This was almost too much for him to handle in his current state. Still, he did it, he did it because it was his job.

Knees dipped into the water, Jorge breathed a shaky sigh as he looked up. The rest of the Ragman’s army were all retreating, hissing and recoiling from the liquid that poured all around them. He didn’t know what it was about the water but it was clear that the mutant had a problem with it – even his extensions. The clones hissed and recoiled, trying to crawl away from the liquid but finding it absolutely everywhere. Before his eyes he watched as they each began to melt into puddles of nothing, only discarded rags floating along the surfaces.

With the army inert, there was a clean shot at the Ragman. Jorge had commanded his partner to go, to try and confront him. However as the man marched away, he could hear the hissing, pained sounds of their culprit as LInely, or as he was otherwise known, Spasm, used his abilities to wrack the mutant with pain. The Ragman recoiled and shouted, his pale face becoming momentarily visible beneath his hood as he fell to his knees, cringing under the sensations that exploded across his body.

But he grinned. The sonnvabitch actually grinned. Jorge tried to shout out, tried to reach out to Linely to get him to stop before he got too close. But Linely was careless, he stepped just in range of the soaking wet mutant. Water hurt him, pain hurt him, but still he found means to push through it. With a swipe that went unseen, Linely was gone from this world.

”Nooo!” Jorge shouted.

He moved onto his feet, painfully, his head still swimming. The Ragman sat there, on his knees, chuckling a bit maniacally to himself It was clear that he thought himself the winner of this little engagement and, within the next moment, would absorb the watery detective too. However there was a gasp as suddenly Jorge could see a beam of light shining through the void within the Ragman’s cloak. No one had ever taken a flashlight into the void, much less used it. If light hurt him on the outside, Jorge could only guess how it hurt him from the inside out.

”Noo…B-Burnssss us…burrrnss!!” he shouted.

Jorge, straightening up, locked eyes upon the flailing creature. He wasn’t getting away this time. With a snarl on his lips, the man firmed up his stance and reached out with both arms. The water around the room suddenly surged, churning as it was whipped up into a tidal wave of water. So much water was collected into his standing water that the rest of the floor almost dried up, Jorge pulling every amount of moisture he could get his hands on. His gaze upon the demon, the took one breath before he shouted…

”Allow me to douse it.”

With a growl and a shout, Jorge swept both hands towards the beast, immediately wrapping him up in a localized storm at seat. The Ragman shouted as he was buffeted by waves, thrown about against the walls of the building, clanging his head against stairways and equipment. It would feel like the mutant was trapped at sea during a hurricane, but he was in a single room, in blob of water that churned and pulled at him in all directions before, finally, Jorge sent him slamming, hard, into a brick wall.

Falling to his knee again, Jorge breathed and growled in pain, shaking as he tried to hold onto his composure. Deep, shaky breaths, and the detective lifted his gaze. The water receded, falling into drains, through cracks, and seeping out from under doors. All that was left now was him, and the Ragman who laid unconscious with serious head trauma. And yet, from under his clock, there was movement – the first of the victims were starting to crawl out…

The void rumbled....it roared...a scream in the darkness...buuuuurrns! Reverberated, echoed through the darkness. Then...there was light, or at least, no longer an absence of light. Linely walked towards the light. He wasn't going to stay here any longer than he had to.

Linely came out of the void, from underneath a copious amount of rags. How on earth had the Rag Man done that, and why was he being released? He crawled on the floor, being careful to avoid the glass that was strewn across the place. His torch shone into the room, showing Jorge's face. The floor was still slimy with water, almost like stone, Linely got to his feet carefully, his boots crushing a few glass shards as he did so.

"W-what happened. Did I end up-in that void?" He said to the water manipulating cop. This was confusing, he'd barely noticed the absorption. Why was the Rag Man on the floor? He could barely remember what had happened...Then he remembered a little. Emily, she had been kidnapped by the beast! As the woman he had seen in the void emerged, barely acknowledging the two cops, almost entirely reticent.

"Well, I think we found number 5..." Linely stated confidently. Then out came the young girl, Olivia. Upon seeing Jorge, she ran up to him and wrapped her hands around his chest. "Where's my dad officer?". Linely could only imagine what it was like to actually spend a significant amount of time in that place. He felt like the last few minutes had been erased.

Somehow Olivia seemed to be less effected than the next two. There were only two, matching the descriptions of the remaining two women, Emily wasn't there. Emily wasn't there. Linely was calm. Cold. Collected. He wasn't about to put a bullet through the Rag Man's brain in the presence of a kid. Olivia had gone through enough trauma.

"Jorge, I'll need to step outside for a minute. Get some fresh air" This was awful. He'd put both his own and Jorge's life at risk by acting rashly. What if he'd dropped the flashlight? What if Emily HAD been there and he'd dropped the flashlight? These were questions he could barely consider as his phone began to audibly buzz, breaking the silence of the dark warehouse.

Even with his hands and knees planted on the slimy, wet floor, the detective still felt like he might keel over at any second. He could barely think straight. Having manipulated as much water as he did, Jorge found himself really feeling the effects of it. It was bad enough summoning the liquid to defeat the group of copies, but using it to subdue and lash out at the Ragman himself had taken the last toll on him. Thankfully, as the man breathed heavily and dug his fingers into the concrete and broken glass, it seemed that his tactic had worked. The rags were moving…but not from the mutant himself.

Though his eyesight was a bit blurry now, the man could see that the form that emerged from the cloak was not the mutant, but the detective whom he had just seen swallowed up by the darkness. Linely looked confused for a second, but that was shaken when another form emerged, that of the most recent kidnapped individual. From the looks of her she was one of the homeless women who clung to the alleys. There was no way they would have even noticed she was gone, sadly.

Lastly there would be another, a younger girl who had set them on this case together. She was confused, obviously, but upon seeing Jorge, immediately drew the assumption that he was an officer (the badge attached to his belt gave it away). She ran over, wrapping her arms around his neck; Jorge sighed in relief, one arm wrapping around her shoulders in comfort as he slowly tried to force himself to stand.

>> "Where's my dad, officer?"

He smirked kindly. ”Back at home. We’ll take you back to him soon.”

His eyes drifted back to Linely. The man had barreled all the way over here because it was clear that he had thought someone he knew was in danger? However, looking at the individuals who were freed, none of them looked like the young lady he had seen on the man’s phone. If the Ragman didn’t have her, then where was she? He gulped as he started towards him to inquiry after his well-being but Linely beat him to the punch.

>> "Jorge, I'll need to step outside for a minute. Get some fresh air"

He nodded. ”Go on…” he said. ”I’ll call this in.”

He watched Linely go as he turned back to the fallen body of the unconscious mutant. Stepping away from the girl, he gestured for her to join the other survivors in a corner of the room who watched the body with trepidation. Pulling cuffs from his belt, Jorge carefully kicked away the rags revealing the skeletal thin, albino man underneath. He was breathing heavily, effectively knocked out due to his encounter with the watermancer. Carefully Jorge knelt down and bound the mutant’s hands and feet; he wasn’t going to take any chances.

After the Ragman was secured, Jorge took a deep breath as he pulled out his phone. He called in the incident, informing the precinct that the Ragman had been captured and incapacitated. Once he was done, Jorge turned to take a few steps back. He stood near the doorway that Linely had left from and leaned against it, staring between the fallen Ragman and Linely. He nodded to his makeshift partner.

”You alright?” Jorge asked, tiredly.

Linely fumbled with his phone in the dark of the night sky. He virtually dropped it again when he saw who it was. Emily. She was safe. Or hopefully so. If this was a ransom demand he might think again. He began to tremble badly. Tears began to sting his cheeks as he answered it, just before it went to voicemail.

"Hey Joseph, thought I'd call to see how you were. I'm on a-" She was clearly having a good time, no worries in the world. Not scared. Something told Joseph that his worry had been over absolutely nothing. He interrupted by nearly shouting down the phone.

"Emily, please tell me that is the sound of your voice. Please tell me that you're safe." He was full blown weeping now. Like a bloody baby. It was like she'd been given back to him, like she'd risen from the dead.

She laughed a little. She thought he was joking. "I'm fine Joe, I'm on the Church retreat, you know, the one that Naomi, Louis and Rachel are on as well? The women's retreat? Do you even listen to the notices?" All in an even more jovial tone. She laughed again, such sweet music to Linely's ears.

"Emily...I thought you'd been..." Now he was incomprehensible. It had clearly dawned on her as she gasped at what she'd pieced together from Lienly's blubbing. Linely could here the footsteps of the other officer coming out from the warehouse.

"I'm fine Joe, I'm looking forward to seeing you next week..." It was kindly, not even the smallest hint of amusement until the next part. "Although I must say this is an odd reaction from someone you've said was a ...friend." Linely laughed at this.

"I suppose it is. I'll see you later...sorry about the hysteria. See you later Emily." She hung up , the sound of a couple of the younger women giggling in the background. He was going to have some explaining to do.

>> "You alright?"
Linely turned to Jorge, cheeks somewhat saturated with tears. He nearly shouted at Jorge out of frustration with himself."I jeopardised the whole operation with my rash actions. Power growth is something I could have predicted, the Rag-Man has had the time after all. If you hadn't had the power set you have, we both could have never been seen again!" His voice quietened. "I'm sorry. I was a bad partner in this." He braced himself for a deserved rant from the experienced officer. There would probably be an inquiry over this if they reported it as it actually happened.

When Jorge had stepped out to check on his partner, he had only caught the tail-end of the man’s discussion with the individual on the phone. From what he could gather it seemed that the person whom he thought was in danger was rather safe and sound. He was blubbering like a child but the voice calmed him down fairly quickly. He would have turned away to give the man privacy, but he wanted to ensure that he had his head right about him, otherwise they were in for a long discussion.

It didn’t escape the man how reckless Linely had been earlier. The man had nearly driven off after the Ragman without him and there was such a look in his eye, a look that the detective had seen many times before when a good officer, pushed too far, crosses over a line. He didn’t want to see Linely go through that so he had tried his best to stay on him, to keep him in the game lest he get himself killed. He still managed to get sucked up by the nefarious mutant, which was bad, but at least Jorge had been there to do something about it.

His arms crossed over his chest, Jorge peeked in through the door to ensure that the mutant was still handcuffed and unconscious. With that done, he turned back to Linely who was just getting off the phone with the woman he had been so worried about. Truth be told, Jorge would have probably been in the same boat if he had thought that Gemma had come to any harm. That was something that would have turned the man’s gaze red as well. So, in a way, he did understand. However, as it is with all officers, Jorge listened to the guilt that saturated his psyche.

>> "I jeopardised the whole operation with my rash actions. Power growth is something I could have predicted, the Rag-Man has had the time after all. If you hadn't had the power set you have, we both could have never been seen again! … I'm sorry. I was a bad partner in this."

Jorge tilted his head as he eyed the younger officer. His posture and his expression was unreadable. His lips were set thin, like a man about to scold, but his brow was furrowed in confusion as to what to really say. But what made the whole demeanor of Jorge Cervantes confusing was the look of care and understanding in his deep brown eyes. As he watched the man for a few moments, Jorge simply sighed as he held out his arm towards him and gestured for him to join him. Once Linely did, Jorge would turn and nod as he looked inside the building. The individuals who were capture were together, still somewhat shaken but clearly alive and well.

The detective turned back to the other as he spoke. ”You see them in there? Because of you, and me, and the police department, they get to go home to their families. They get to live their lives again,” he said softly. ”In the end, no one is going to remember how rashly you acted. All they’ll remember is that lives were saved.” He gave the man a hard, but well-meaning clap on the shoulder. ”Consider it a lesson learned. And thank the lord no one was hurt in the process.”

"Thank the Lord indeed" Jorge was being kind to him, or at least being diplomatic. The women and girls they'd saved mattered more than any feelings of remorse over what he had done in Linely's mind. "I wouldn't say no-one was hurt in the process..." Linely spoke. He wasn't going to have some heavy explaining to do at the Church, for example, was he now officially courting Emily? Did he really want to take things to the next level? Did she? As far as he understood it she just thought he was a close friend....She had agreed to spend an awful lot of time with him though...

"How much mental damage do you think these people will have suffered? Didn't you say most of your rescues were struck with real difficulties afterwards?" Hopefully Jorge wouldn't catch on to this smokescreen. True, Linely himself hadn't caused harm to the people he saved, but the Rag-Man was a monster. He'd half a mind to put a bullet through the b*stards brain after all the anguish, especially to Olivia's father.

The dawn was approaching, the sun beginning to catch the buildings, creating long shadows in the sky. The glass in the warehouse glistened with a golden sheen as the clouds began to break apart. The early sounds of the street were nearly audible from the buildings, but it was still early in the day yet. Hadn't rain been forecast anyway? At least moving the Ragman would be easier as it got lighter.

"Have we called this one in?" Linely quipped to Jorge. With all the power growth, anger at an evil mutant and saving the captives, it seemed that he had forgotten to do that. "If we want Helen the secretary to give us a row, that's a good way of doing that." Her mutation helped with organisation, but also made her very particular about not getting basic admin wrong. Particularly now she was expecting very soon, it would be a bad idea to make her mad.

Olivia had come out to join them as they were talking, she was trembling slightly. While her clothes were sufficient enough to keep a winter night at bay, being in the void of that unconscious thing was clearly having some effect. "Officer Cervantes?" She said quietly. "C-can I talk to you about something?" Linely looked at the senior officer. Sometimes policemen needed to be more than just cops.

>> "How much mental damage do you think these people will have suffered? Didn't you say most of your rescues were struck with real difficulties afterwards?"

Jorge sighed as he crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes drifted over to those people whom they had just rescued and he found himself watching them very carefully. Oddly, for the most part, it seemed as if they were okay. He guessed that the reason was that the majority of these people were found within days rather than weeks. The first time that Jorge had stopped the Ragman, weeks went by between abductions. The Ragman had gotten desperate this time and spaced them too close together, which was how attention was drawn.

He turned to Linely to give him an encourage, small smirk. ”I...think they’ll be okay. It doesn’t seem as if the Ragman had them captured for long. If anything, they will probably just feel a little disoriented. The last people I saved from him had been there for…weeks.” He shook his head. ”Poor devils. But these…” he eyed all the rescues. They seemed spaced but, for the most part, they were okay. ”I think they’ll be fine.”

His eyes never strayed far from the Ragman. The fact was that while the mutant was subdued, he was always going to be dangerous. Jorge simply wasn’t sure what else they could do to ensure that he didn’t do this type of thing again short of just storing him in a plastic bubble and launching him to the moon for the most ultimate of solitary confinement. But, whatever the case, the mutant wasn’t leaving his sight until he was properly held.

Also, he eyed Linely out of the corner of his eye, the man had gotten crazed earlier. For a moment Jorge wondered what the man would have done had he not been there. Thankfully those thoughts didn’t last too long. He didn’t know the detective well enough to make a judgement call and, honestly, wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

>> "Have we called this one in? If we want Helen the secretary to give us a row, that's a good way of doing that."

He nodded. ”When you first stepped out here, I called it in,” Jorge admitted. He too knew what would have happened if protocol wasn’t followed. He’d been in the doghouse with Helen before and it certainly wasn’t a place he wanted to be again. ”We should be covered.” As for anything else, incident reports and such, they would deal with that in due time. Jorge didn’t know what the rest would say about Linely’s actions, but Jorge would be sure to counter that he had been an assist to this case.

As the two waited for the rest of the authorities to arrive, Jorge found his gaze drifting to their youngest captive. She approached them, nervously, and Jorge tried to give her a warm smile as he turned his gaze to her.

>>"Officer Cervantes? C-can I talk to you about something?"

He nodded his head encouragingly. ”Sure. What’s going on?”

So Jorge had called it all in? Good man, that was one thing they didn't have to worry about. Linely could hear sirens in the distance, one of those sirens surely would surely be their cleanup crew. The blue lights of the police cars would soon swarm this alley, not that it would be too noticeable as the dawn was continuing to crack. "That's a relief, Helen would not enjoy the stress it would put on her baby" or that would be her claim. Rather, she didn't want the undue stress put on her as well as her baby. How she was able to power through the work Linely didn't know, all he did know was that the kicks from the baby were getting a lot stronger, and a lot more obvious to his powers.

Olivia had nervously approached Cervantes, and returned a nervous smile to the officer. She stepped nervously towards the cop. "It's about..." She paused. Linely noticed one of her hands was clenched in the darkness. As if she was grasping hold of something she didn't want to let go. Whatever it was, it wasn't hurting her... the teenage girl continued. "I think I might need to tell my dad about something." Oh boy, was this going to be about the boyfriend she mentioned? That would only ever be a conversation filled with awkwardness, but Linely was sure that her Dad would just be glad to have her back...

Olivia walked up to Jorge, placing herself emphatically between the two officers. Linely couldn't see her hands any more, as she held them out in front of Jorge. As she opened her hands, the girl nearly began to sob. "How am I gonna tell my dad about this?" Linely could only look puzzled at this, surely Jorge would understand the situation better. Though if Linely had seen what was in Olivia's hands he would have understood completely.

For what was in Olivia's unfurled fist was almost like a shimmering, insubstantial, orb. Almost like the night sky, but twinkling with the light of stars. As Olivia began to tear up, a single drop of water fell from her cheek upon to the orb. The orb dissipated like smoke into the air. "I-I think I might be..." The girl trailed off and attempted to hug the water-manipulator again.

"Look Olivia" Linely calmly spoke to the scene. "Whatever it is, your Dad is still your Dad, and he loves you more than anything. What he wants is for you to be home safe, and for the thing that took you to be put in a cell with padded walls and bright lights." He could only hope Cervantes knew the situation better than he did.

Their youngest rescuee needed to talk about something. Jorge tilted his head curiously, looking at the unsure expression on her face and the discomfort that was there. For a moment he was worried that maybe being caught in the Ragman had affected her more than he anticipated; maybe her mind had been more damaged than he could have realized. But as he knelt to meet her at eye level, the man knew then that it wasn’t the case. This was a different matter entirely.

>> "It's about...I think I might need to tell my dad about something."

Silently Jorge urged the young lady to continue. Talking could dissuade her from whatever she wanted to say and her silence was the last thing he needed right now. With an encouraging look, Jorge gave the victim a small and comforting smile just to show that she was safe to tell him whatever it was she needed.

It seemed that the woman had more secrets than they were aware of. The whole reason she had left her father’s house the night she was abducted was because she had been dating a mutant; daddy didn’t agree with that. However it seemed that maybe the man’s daughter had a far more important mutant matter to deal with – she was a budding mutant herself. The fear in her eyes, the uncertainty, it was a look that Jorge had seen many times since he interacted a lot more with the mansion. He had seen a similar look in the eyes of Agnes Nicholas when she was working on trying to get her life back together. And now he was seeing that same look in this young girl.

Jorge sighed, sharing with the young woman a compassionate smile. She was clearly upset and Linely himself did what he could to try and quell her fears. At the end of the day, Jorge’s job was to protect people like her, from all enemies. While it wasn’t right for her to face to face that kind of prejudice at home, maybe his own presence would be enough to quell any fears, for the moment, that her father may have at the revelation.

Jorge stood upright and continued to pour as much compassion as he could for the young woman. ”Don’t worry. You’ll be okay. How about I go home with you? Okay? I’ll explain everything to your father and things will be okay.”

He would make sure to give the girl his business card so that if she needed help, if her father was truly that cruel, she would be able to contact him. Jorge wasn’t going to let another Agnes situation happen.

As he stepped away from the girl, he glanced to Linely, and then to the fallen Ragman who was still out cold. Already the lights from their back-up had arrived, filling the building with a riot of reds and blues from their emergency lights. At least the man wouldn’t have to deal with this alone this time. So he gave him an encouraging nod and patted him on the shoulder.

”Listen, I’ll take her home in one of the squad cars,” he explained. ”You help the rest talk with the officers and make sure the Ragman is put into a secure bus this time. And just breathe…” Jorge said in an encouraging manner to the younger man. ”You did good. Just focus on that.” Turning he gave another nod to the young new mutant and guided her towards the front where officers were already beginning to move into the building. Before he got too far, he called out over his shoulder. ”I’ll see you around, Linely.”

And with that, Jorge stepped outside with his young mutant rescuee in tow. It was time to head to take her home and, hopefully, explain to her father just how special his little girl was…